


this mess was yours now your mess is mine

by notbang



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergent, Established Relationship, F/M, just two people being generally terrible at dating, only not that awful because there are Talks, precious human disasters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-02-15 04:21:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 75,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13023126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notbang/pseuds/notbang
Summary: “Nobody at work has batted an eyelid, which I feel like should probably concern me more? Darryl keeps catching my eye and making this face where his mouth is turned down but he’s also smiling? And Maya wanted me to know that she ‘ships’ us – I don’t know what that means.”Rebecca Bunch turns thirty.





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, so somehow no matter how plot focused I tried to make this it just kept turning into a whole lot of banter and making out help I don’t even know who I am anymore I never write fluff like this. Basically I haven't felt like dealing with any of my responsibilities the past three weeks and accidentally sat down and wrote 30K of R/N.
> 
> I started this after 3x06 so it’s in a slightly different direction to 3x07 with some amusing coincidences. Here's a (super long) prologue for what is basically a year in the life type thing? It’s already reasonably finished so I’ll post some more every few days or so!

It starts with an unexpected rush of jealousy, sudden and white-hot.

Taking issue with his latest set of revisions on her casework and a little affronted by the tone of his emails, she’s making her way towards his office, frowning and coffee in hand. She stops before she reaches the door, though, because she notices through the glass that Nathaniel is in there with a _girl_ , and the way that realisation causes her stomach to clench and knot in on itself catches her by surprise.

(The truth is it started long before, but this is where it congeals, solidifies and takes up stubborn root in her chest.)

“Who’s that?” she asks distractedly when Maya passes her, her hand wrapping around her colleague’s arm.

“Nathaniel’s eleven o’clock. I didn’t catch her name. She’s _tall,_ right? And that pinstripe pant suit that fits her like a glove. Girl can totally get it,” Maya says with admiration, sliding her glasses up her nose before continuing on her way to the copier.

The woman is very tall, and her pant suit is very nice, Rebecca grants. She supposes she can ‘get it’, and starts to wonder if she is in fact ‘getting it’ that very moment from the way Nathaniel is perched on the front of his desk, posture open, charm factor cranked up to eleven and the charisma coming off him in waves. She can tell unequivocally from their body language that they know each other, are somehow familiar; it makes Rebecca bristle in a way she’s not comfortable with but before she can spin and head back to her desk as planned he happens to glance in her direction and catch her gaze.

The smile slides momentarily from his face.

She stares back at him for a long moment, too long, until the woman turns to look at her, too.

Rebecca pivots hurriedly on her heel and makes a beeline for the elevator, announcing to Paula that she’s taking an early lunch.

 

* * *

 

The thing is, it’s her birthday.

It’s her thirtieth birthday, to be exact, and while she doesn’t exactly feel an ominous sense of foreboding about her impending downhill slide towards forty (although – _shit_ ) the occasion does kind of seem momentous. Thirty kind of sounds like you should have your life together, after all; and whilst objectively no one could call a fairly competent attorney at a steadily growing firm of somewhat decent repute a failure, there are the ongoing matters of her until-recently undiagnosed personality disorder, her eternally shaky relationship with her mother, now entirely non-existent relationship with her father and the glaring slew of abysmally failed romantic trysts she seems to leave in her wake no matter the state she’s residing in. She supposes she should be grateful she doesn’t have to add _divorcee_ to the list, because if she’s completely honest with herself, no matter how soul-destroying it had felt at the time, in retrospect Josh had kind of done her a favour by leaving her at the altar.

“We’re still on for dinner, right?” Paula asks through the gap between their cubicles, moving her mugs and dipping her head to peer through. “It took me forever to get us a reservation at that new Italian place on Fairway. It is _fancy_. And I know it’s going to be obscenely expensive, but that’s okay because it’s not every day your favourite Cookie turns thirty!”

Rebecca forces her eyes away from her computer screen, abandoning her perusal of Buzzfeed’s _30 People That Only Made It After 30._

“Of course,” she says, placing her hand over Paula’s and giving it a grateful squeeze. “I’m looking forward to it. It’s been awhile since we went out just the two of us, did something nice. Are you sure Heather and Valencia didn’t mind?”

“Heather’s working ‘til late anyway but Valencia said she might meet us for drinks afterwards, so remind me to keep her updated.”

It’s at this point that Nathaniel breezes out of his office, paperwork in one hand, his token travel mug of green sludge in the other. He spots Rebecca at her desk and makes his way over, gait no-nonsense and brusque. She makes a show of unhurriedly minimising her extra-curricular tabbed browsing.

“Hard at work, as per usual, I see,” he observes. “These are the latest documents for the Wexler case – I need your signature on them. They have go by courier this afternoon, so your little quiz to find out what flavour of ice cream you are will have to wait.”

She raises an eyebrow at him and looks pointedly at her in tray. He rolls his eyes and drops the folder on top of it.

“Ha. I don’t need to take that particular quiz,” she says, lifting her chin. “I already know what flavour of ice cream I am.”

“Rocky road?” he guesses, and she pulls a face at him.

“Chocolate pecan,” she corrects with a breezy smile. “Dark but sweet, and a little nutty.”

Paula makes a coughing sound and Nathaniel straightens up, adjusting his tie and taking a too-long swill from his drink before jabbing his finger at the documents in her tray.

“I want this done now,” he reiterates, before making his way back to his office.

Rebecca thinks absently about the woman from earlier and flips him off as he leaves.

 

* * *

 

She can be clueless sometimes but she’s not completely naïve; she knows the ball is entirely in her court, where it’s been aimlessly rolling around for months.

The day she’d gone to see him to ask for her job back he’d been warm, his tone soft; he’d asked all the right questions about how she was doing and in what capacity she felt ready to return. They’d laughed together when he’d told her about the HR disaster that had been his attempt to find her replacement, and when Darryl had joined the meeting to offer his input (read: uncontainable excitement) Nathaniel had sat back in his chair and just watched her, a small smile on his face.

She knows it’s stupid and unfair; knows that he can’t be expected to wait around for her forever, that she can’t rebuff his advances and feel betrayed when he chooses not pine. He doesn’t make a point of seeking her out each morning to greet her anymore and she pretends that she doesn’t notice and invents reasons to cross paths with him, just to check he’ll still smile and say hello. It’s comforting, though; being back at work and following an old routine, where things are for the most part straightforward and make sense, including the way they’ve slipped back into the roles of prickly boss and defiant employee, even if sometimes she lets herself slip and the words _I have feelings for you_ start up on repeat in her brain.

The dress she picks for dinner is bright cornflower blue with a floaty skirt, and she dutifully spends the half hour waiting for Paula to pick her up curling her limp locks into something that resembles a hairstyle.

“So, how does it feel to be the big three-zero?” Paula asks once they’re in the car.

“Honestly, not that much different from being twenty nine,” Rebecca shrugs.

Her phone startles them both when it sing-songs at her from her lap.

“Who is it?” Paula asks.

“It’s Nathaniel,” she says, frowning as she slides across the answer button. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Hey, where are you?”

“Uh, in the car with Paula. Why?”

“Those documents you signed this afternoon for the permits on the Wexler case had to be revised. I need you to come sign the updated version so they can be sent overnight. Right now. This is urgent. Drop whatever you’re doing.”

“What? No. I’m on my way out to dinner. It’s my birthday.”

“So what? Birthdays stop being a thing after you turn five. Birth is something that happened to you, not something you did. Celebrate achievements, not arbitrary numbers. That’s what my dad always said.”

“And that explains so many things, but right now I’m heading out to dinner with my best friend, so -”

“Where?”

“What?”

“Where are you going for dinner? I’ll swing by with the documents.”

“Uh, that nice Italian place on Fairway. But -”

“Fairway? Well, great. That’s right around the corner from my apartment. I’ll meet you there, you can sign the reprints and be on your merry way and I won’t have to interrupt anything.”

“Paula’s going to be pissed,” she says, meeting her friend’s narrowed eyes.

“Well, as the person that signs Paula’s pay checks, feel free to tell her I don’t really care. See you in a few.”

 

* * *

 

“You could have waited in the car, you know. This is not going to take long,” Rebecca tells Paula as they step out of the elevator into the hallway.

“Yeah, right. And miss out on seeing how the other half lives? If Nathaniel’s going to interrupt our girl time with work he can bet his nicely sculpted ass I’m gonna sneak a peek at his bachelor’s pad.”

To her credit Paula chooses not to comment on the way she knows exactly the way to Nathaniel’s door.

She knocks impatiently under the number thirty seven, tapping her shoe in agitation when it fails to swing open. When he still doesn’t answer on her third attempt she gives it a final frustrated smack before pulling out her phone and hitting redial.

“Dude, where are you? Are you not here yet?”

There’s a lot of background noise.

“Sorry – there’s this whole thing going on with some of my neighbours and I got caught up outside. Could you come up to the roof for a second?”

She starts stomping back towards the elevator, Paula trailing after her in confusion.

“I don’t have time for like, a scenic tour of your building right now. You better be waiting on that patio with a pen in your hand or I’m out.”

“Yeah, I’ve got everything ready to go.”

“Why is it so loud out there, anyway? Also a heads up, I’m probably going to bill you to overtime for this, because I don’t think -”

She stops dead in her tracks as soon as she pushes through the door because for starters, there are fairy lights – _a lot_ of fairy lights - and she feels like she’s just stepped into something out of Dustin and Sasha’s Pinterest board and honestly, it’s pretty freaking magical. It takes her a second to realise that the people milling about beneath the curtain of lights aren’t just people but people that she _knows_ , and when they spot her they cluster awkwardly together and yell something that’s about seventy percent _surprise!_ and thirty percent _happy birthday!_ because of course they didn’t think to agree on that first.

“Huh. Just a question - do I still have to sign some stuff?” she says into her phone.

Nathaniel laughs.

“You know, it can probably wait until Monday.”

She hangs up and turns to Paula, who is surveying the terrace with a serene smile on her face.

“Wow,” Paula says. “This is beautiful.”

“Paula, we have dinner plans. That reservation that took you so long to get – oh, and that was a lie,” she realises off Paula’s amused look. “There’s no reservation.”

“Yeah, there’s no way I was getting a booking at that place. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”

“Okay. I fell for that. You were in on all this. Of course you were. You’re amazing. This is wonderful.” She pulls her into a half hug, almost hesitant. “There are a _lot_ of people here.”

“Yeah,” Paula agrees. “Because there are a lot of people who care about you, Cookie. You’ve got a lot of friends.”

It makes her chest feel a little tight but warm inside when she considers that, mapping the sea of familiar faces smiling back at her. Rebecca sniffs, blinking back moisture from her eyes then presses the back of her hand against her mouth and laughs.

“Yeah, I kind of do, don’t I?”

She finally steps forward into the throng and is immediately accosted with hugs; Darryl manages to barge past Valencia and Heather to get to her first and to her credit Valencia’s expression is only slightly murderous.  

“So, flirty thirty. Congrats on being, like, super old now,” Heather drawls. “Don’t be too bummed, though, girl; you can still get it.”

“Body-wise it’s meant to be all downhill from here, but it’s not so bad – some of us have further to fall than others,” Valencia adds brightly. “Happy birthday, girlfriend!”

“Oh, you guys - don’t forget this,” Paula interrupts.

She extends a black box to Valencia who reaches in and pulls out a glittering tiara that makes Rebecca’s mouth form into an excited ‘o’.

“Shut up,” she says, smacking Paula on the arm. “I get a crown as well? This is already the best birthday ever. Okay, crown me. Crown me.”

Rebecca dips her head in an exaggerated curtsy as Valencia positions the headpiece in her hair with all the finesse of a master artist, stepping back to survey her handiwork with a regal nod of approval.

The tiara isn’t a tacky plastic birthday trinket, though honestly her excitement level probably would have been similar regardless – her # _gurlgroup4evah_ clearly have her wildest dreams pegged because the literal treasure perched in amongst her tresses is a perfect filigree arrangement of silver and sparkle that catches and reflects the entire canopy of lights stretched out above her.

She extends her arms in front of her, hands curled delicately at the wrist like the Disney princess she feels like before she clasps them to her chest and tucks down her chin.

“You guys, this is one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me,” she says in a small voice.

“As much as I’d love to take credit for it – Sweetie, this was all Nathaniel,” Paula says, smiling and shaking her head. “Darryl and I talked about doing something like this but it never really got off the ground. Nathaniel made it happen.”

“Yeah, I was totally down with like, beers at Home Base, but this is pretty cool,” Heather chimes in. “There’s a cocktail bar and everything. Dude really splashed out.”

“I mean we definitely helped a whole bunch – these lights didn’t string themselves - but from one party planner to another, that man is intense,” Valencia agrees. “Apparently I’m not the only one that can rock a headset.”

For a brief moment Rebecca glances down at the phone still in her hand, recalling where she is and who she has just been speaking to. When her eyes start to scan the crowd Paula places a gentle hand on her arm and indicates towards a corner with her head. He’s talking to Darryl by the balcony; or rather Darryl is talking to him and he’s maybe half paying attention because as if he senses her eyes on him he looks up at her and shoves his hands deep into his pockets.

“Hi,” she says with a soft smile when she reaches him.

“Hi,” he echoes.

“Hi,” Darryl says, then takes the hint and excuses himself when neither of them looks at him.

“So, uh, were you in charge of the invite list? Because just between you and me,” she says conspiratorially, “I have no idea who a few of these people are.”

Nathaniel laughs.

“Those are probably my neighbours – I had to invite them to get permission to use the space like this, but if they’re annoying you I could probably pay them to leave.”

“Oh, no – it’s fine. It looks like Jim might have found his latest soulmate. Hey – maybe they’ll move in together and you guys can be building buddies.”

“I’d really rather he didn’t.”

“Yeah, thought so.” She bites her lip and looks around. “So… this is quite the party.”

“I’ve heard it’s in honour of quite the person,” he says wryly.

She laughs at that and gestures to the tiara on her head.

“Well, I guess I am kind of a big deal. I’m a princess now, so.”

“I can see that,” he says with a broad smile.

After a beat of holding her gaze the line of his mouth drops into something more serious as he regards her, his expression disarmingly open and earnest in a way that reminds her of the day she’d caught him leaving roses on her doorstep. _I’m glad you’re home_ , he’d said then, and something about it had settled heavy and warm over her chest.

Her own smile fades into a self-conscious frown as she cocks her head at him, her still-damp eyes wide as she speaks in an uncharacteristically shy voice.

“You seriously did all this for me?”

He ducks his head and shrugs, hands still buried in his pockets.

“Well. Paula did a lot of it. And Darryl. And your housemates – do they both live with you? I’m not really sure. Everyone had a lot of ideas -”

She cuts him off by pulling his mouth down to hers and kissing him soundly; it takes him a good ten seconds to reboot his brain and respond but when his hands finally find purchase on the small of her back and she hoists herself up to wrap her legs ridiculously around him he’s almost ready for her, somehow managing to only stumble back slightly from the momentum.

“Wow, that took a lot more body strength than I was expecting and I’ve just realised my inner core is basically non-existent,” she says a little breathlessly when they break for air, his arms making an attempt to adjust his precarious hold on her.

“Yeah, you know, a little warning next time would be nice. For the record you’re not exactly the lightest -”

She thinks silencing him by sealing her lips over his is fast on its way to becoming her new favourite hobby.

When she finally relaxes her grip he helps her slide down his body, mindful of her dress and depositing her softly back on the ground in front of him, toe to toe, though the height difference leaves him craning his neck down to look at her, his expression dazed and a little unsure.

“So in case I didn’t make myself clear, we’re doing this now. You? Me? We’re gonna try it. It’s happening. Just go with it.”

“Okay.”

He leans in to kiss her again but she twists playfully out of reach.

“Woah, buddy; take me out to dinner first.” They share a smile before she deadpans, “But I’m serious. You have to take me out to dinner first.”

He doesn’t bother pointing out that he kind of already tried.

“You are like the personification of whiplash - you know that, right?”

“It’s one of my many enticing qualities, I know.”

She smiles and slips her hand into his and he follows obediently as she leads him back towards the others. He doesn’t comment when she lets go before they get there.

“Care to shout me a drink from your fancy cocktail bar?” she asks him, batting her eyelids.

“What are you in the mood for?”

“Literally anything except a gin and tonic. Don’t ask; it’s a long story.”

He brings her a pink Cosmopolitan and she takes a long sip from the tiny straw, groaning in approval.

“Perfect,” she says, and then she’s pulled away by two girls from her therapy group begging her to dance.

 

* * *

 

The night passes in a whirlwind of drinks and laughter, and Rebecca can’t remember the last time she felt so wild and carefree. She can’t remember the last time she felt this drunk, either, which probably helps some, and she savours the buzz with contented smile.

She spots Nathaniel thumbing through his phone by the bar and muses she’s barely seen him since she kissed him, the realisation blossoming into an unsettling agitation that prickles along her skin and twitches in the tips of her fingers as she watches him slip past the remaining party-goers towards the exit.

She stumbles purposefully towards him to cut him off.

“Where are you going without saying goodbye?” she demands, to her embarrassment not entirely steady on her feet.

He steadies her with a fleeting hand on her waist and she swallows at the contact.

“Easy,” he murmurs. “I was just going to head downstairs; you looked kind of busy re-enacting the ending of _Pippin_ for Darryl and his boyfriend. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“And you were skipping out on my one woman show? I’ll have you know it takes a lot of talent and hard liquor to play all those parts simultaneously.”

“Huh, I could tell.”

Her impulse control has never been particularly good and right now soaked in ethanol it’s basically non-existent; she pouts and hooks a finger into his belt.

“You can’t leave yet. It’s my birthday and I say so. C’mon, dance with me.”

He makes a reluctant noise in the back of his throat as she tugs him closer to where the music is coming from, quieter now the hour is late, into a small open gap between some tables and chairs, one of her hands winding its way into his and the other creeping around his waist. He glances around a little self-consciously but no one is paying them any mind.

(It occurs to him that he shouldn’t care regardless. The woman wants to dance, after all; and who has he ever been to deny her anything she’s wanted?)

Rebecca is very drunk but almost hyper-focused, her hooded eyes boring into his in a way that’s more than a little unsettling. He has to pull his gaze away.

“So. You look like you’ve been enjoying yourself.”

“Well, now that I’ve officially come of age, I’ve decided to become a lady of leisure.”

“And by that you mean… prostitute?”

“No I do not mean a prostitute,” she scoffs. “I mean a lady that enjoys the finer things in life. Like jazz and liquor. That doesn’t get bogged down by the dreary ins and outs of the daily grind. That’s all fun and pizzazz instead of all work and no play.”

“Are you and I reflecting on the same person?”

“Listen, pal – it may seem like I’ve been keepin’ it pretty breezy SoCal style and all, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve had my fair share of drama following me around. What I’m saying is, I want to shake it off, T-Swift style. Live lighter. Be adventurous. Carpe all the diems.”

“Uh-huh.”

The tempo of the music doesn’t match at all but they’ve reduced to a barely perceptible sway on the spot, defiantly slow dancing to some peppy pop song he doesn’t recognise. Her hand slides up from his shoulder to the nape of his neck, and the way she rubs the tiny hairs there between her fingertips sends electric shocks down his spine. He gives the hand still clasped in his own a gentle squeeze in response.

Rebecca sighs contentedly and lays the side of her face on his chest and he only hesitates for a beat before tentatively resting his chin on the top of her head, to which she hums in assent.

“I am super tired,” she announces, and he as much feels her words vibrate through him as he hears them.

“I think Paula was going to drive you home.”

“Yeah, okay. In a minute.”

She feels boneless and warm, her mind blissfully blank, and after about ten minutes of no further signs of life from the woman in his arms Nathaniel manages to catch Paula’s eye and beckon her over with a tilt of his head.

“I think somebody’s rapidly running out of steam,” he murmurs when she joins them, lifting his chin and pulling back to look at Rebecca.

“Yeah, I think it was pretty much straight vodka fumes for the last half hour,” Paula agrees. “I’m kinda impressed she’s still upright.”

“Technically I’m leaning very heavily on another person. And stop talking about me like I’m not here,” she mumbles into the fabric of his shirt.

“Cookie, we’re gonna get you to the car, okay? C’mon, Tarzan – she’s clearly not fit to be walking anywhere.”

Paula makes an exaggerated scooping motion at Nathaniel and he rolls his eyes before hooking his arm under Rebecca’s knees and lifting her up, causing her to moan loudly in protest before re-burying her head in his chest.

 

* * *

 

“Rebecca, honey – I’m going to go tell Heather and Valencia that we’re leaving and check if anyone needs a lift,” Paula says gently once he’s deposited her safely in the car. She gives Nathaniel a knowing look that makes him shift uneasily on his feet. “Why don’t you say goodnight to the nice man and thank him for his services, hmm?”

Rebecca frowns adorably as Paula leaves and her hand comes up to fist in his shirt and somehow what she says instead of goodnight is:

“Nathaniel? Please don’t sleep with that girl.”

“What?”

“I know it’s none of my business. And I might be completely wrong. But she’s tall and she’s pretty and you two obviously have a history and in my imagination that was what was happening, you were leaving to go have sex with that girl from this morning. And I didn’t want you to so I made you stay and dance with me. And it’s my birthday and I should get what I want and I want you to take me out to dinner and not have sex with that other girl.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? That’s it?”

“That’s it. I mean, I wasn’t going to. I was going to go to bed because I’m tired - I kind of had to get up ridiculously early to organise all the stuff for this party I just threw you. But you’re kind of cute when you’re all drunk and jealous.”

“What? No I’m not. I’m not jealous.”

“Whatever you say, Pinocchio,” he placates, tucking a stray curl behind her ear and straightening her tiara. “You’re not going to remember any of this in the morning, are you?”

“Probably not,” she says, twisting sideways in the car seat so that she’s lying against the headrest like a pillow.

Paula returns at that moment so he clears his throat and straightens up, checking to make sure all of her unwieldly limbs are safely tucked away before closing the passenger door.

“I don’t think I said this before,” he realises as Paula starts the engine. “But happy birthday.”

Rebecca doesn’t reply but winds the window all the way down and leans on her folded arms to smile back at him, eyes wide and happy and bright.

 

* * *

 

 _So how’d you pull up, princess?_ he texts her the next morning, the sound of her message tone an unwelcome intrusion on her extended slumber.

She squints and frowns at the too-bright screen, nebulously registering the source of her discomfort and reaching up to ease the tiara out of her tangled hair before flopping back over and falling asleep.

 

* * *

 

Monday back at work is met with numerous enthusiastic greetings from her cubicle comrades, with Maya gushing over what a great time she had and Jim congratulating her on her beer pong skills. She answers Darryl’s embarrassing holler for his best birthday girl and accompanying finger guns with a tight smile of acknowledgement and a tolerant wave; truth be told she’s still feeling a little seedy because it turns out in her newfound old age her bounce-back isn’t at all what it used to be.

Nathaniel doesn’t leave his office all day.

Nobody’s mentioned their late-night lip-lock yet, not even Paula, which is equal parts relieving and unsettling. Her recollections get hazier the longer the night goes on but she definitely recalls some dancing, and in her drunkenness she seriously doubts she was discreet. People saw, right? And he was there? She thought she’d finally passed back the ball and made her intentions clear.

When Monday turns into Tuesday and then Wednesday before she’s managed to cross paths with him she grows irritable at the state of inertia and even more unproductive than usual until Paula finally calls her out on it and she slumps back in her chair with a frustrated sigh. Her petulant gaze eventually lands on her in-tray, her mind turning and grinding like irritable gears.

She knocks loudly on his door before she’s ready to leave and he distractedly waves her in. It doesn’t escape her notice that he’s not looking her in the eye.

“So I’ve got those rewrites you asked for,” she says, a little aggressively, indicating the papers in her hand.

“Huh?”

“The updated documents for the Wexler case that were so important I re-sign? You said they could wait until Monday. I mean, it’s Wednesday now. So, oops.”

“Right,” he says, catching on. He finally puts down his pen and looks up at her. “Those… weren’t real.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I kinda got that.”

They stare at each other for a long moment where neither of them speaks. Rebecca feels panic start to bubble up in her chest the longer it stretches on because obviously, _obviously_ she’s read this whole thing completely wrong.

“Right, so I guess we’re done here,” she says in a rush, cheeks feeling hot as she turns to make her escape.

“Are you busy tonight?” he blurts out suddenly.

She stops in her tracks, hand resting on the door.

“What?”

“Are you busy tonight?” he repeats, this time with a little more composure. “Do you have plans?”

“Define busy. I’ve got a bottle of rosé and a couple of episodes of Real Housewives to catch up on, but -”

“Do you want to grab dinner? Together? I know it’s late notice, but I thought I could –” He clears his throat, “- try and get a reservation somewhere nice.”

She lets out a relieved breath before turning properly to face him.

The panic she’d felt doesn’t recede immediately, though, and in recompense for her embarrassment she can’t help but tease, raising her eyebrows at him.

“Oh,” she says coolly. “You mean like a date?”

He goes to say something then stops himself, tilting his head as he laughs nervously, swallowing and tugging on the lapel of his jacket.

“Well -”

Something in his face stops her.

“Sorry, I’m kidding. I’m teasing. Let’s do it. It’s a date.” She gives him a tiny smile. “Honestly, I thought you’d decided not to ask.”

“I didn’t hear from you,” he admits, awkwardly. “It’s probably stupid. But I messaged you, the next day, and you didn’t write back, and…”

He trails off on a nonchalant shrug that convinces neither of them.

She frowns at him in confusion before pulling out her phone and flicking to his name in her contacts. She sees and vaguely recalls the text she’d ignored in her inept state and feels only a little guilty until she notices what she’s sure hadn’t escaped his attention, either – the entire collection of messages above it that he’s sent her and never received a response to.

_It’s undone. All of it._

_Can we talk? I feel like we left things a little weird._

_It’s just I had a fun time last night and it seemed like you did too?_

_Are we okay?_

_Are you coming back? Everyone else seems kind of worried_

_Are you okay?_

_Rebecca?_

Her throat feels suddenly too tight and she brings her hand up to rub hard at her forehead with her middle finger and thumb.

“You thought I changed my mind,” she realises, lowering her phone. “Wow. I’m kind of a giant asshole. Sorry.”

He waves away her apology with his hand and a self-deprecating smile.

“It’s nothing. It’s fine.”

“No,” she insists. “I mean, I was just really hungover and slept, like, the entire weekend, so I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose, I swear. But the rest of it – I was. I was ignoring you. And you were being… really sweet, actually.”  

She frowns and bites her lip before turning back to her screen, tapping something out with her thumbs.

His phone vibrates twice in his pocket.

_More than a little worse for wear, but things are looking up._

Then:

_Have dinner with me?_

He huffs in amusement and looks up at her, just as it pulses again.

“Crown emoticon,” she explains with noncommittal shrug.

 

* * *

 

“I’m not really hungry, so you just get whatever you want.”

He doesn’t feel like eating. Not that he’s a big eater to start with but he usually manages dinner; tonight however his stomach feels simultaneously filled to the brim with tiny knots but also cavernously hollow and the thought of consuming anything solid or liquid leaves him nauseated.

“What? No. You have to order something. Otherwise it’s just me sitting here stuffing my face while a man in a suit watches me eat, which is disturbingly close to a recurring dream I suffered through when I was eleven years old and would really prefer not to relive,” she says, accusingly. “Usually when two people go out to dinner, both parties partake in the dining. Besides, there’s probably a rule against you wasting a chair like that. There’s a rule, right? Tell him he has to order something,” she says, turning on the waiter.

“Not ordering a main would be frowned upon, yes,” the young man concedes under Rebecca’s piercing stare.

“Fine, I’ll get a steak. Medium. And swap the potatoes out for extra salad – I don’t do carbs.”

When he looks back up at her after passing back his menu she’s pulling a weird face.

“What?”

“It’s just, you and I are very different people.”

(He forces out a shaky laugh because _god_ , how has he managed to put her off already?)

Rebecca tilts her head at him, puzzled, nudging his leg with hers under the table.

“Dude, chill out. What’s got you so nervous?”

Nathaniel clears his throat and shakes his head before asking, “Is that what this is? I don’t think I’ve ever really been nervous before. I don’t like it. God, this must be what weakness feels like.”

He needs to stop talking because she’s making her sympathetic, doe-eyed _aww_ face again and this really isn’t the mood he was hoping the evening was going to entertain.

“Just relax. I mean, you’ve already seen me naked. The hard part is over, right?”

He closes his eyes and tilts his head back in a long sigh.

“Unsurprisingly, you are not helping.”

She draws her lips into her mouth in a mischievous smirk.

“Anyway, I don’t believe you about never feeling nervous. C’mon dude, you don’t have to front with me. Not to open a can of worms or anything but I’ve seen you get pretty worked up about your dad.”

He smiles wanly at her but gives her nothing, pushing his salad around his plate with his fork.

Rebecca’s been on plenty of dates where she’s had to carry the conversation before but she can’t help but be a little disappointed at not being met in the middle by a man that has in many ways has always been her match. It’s not like she hasn’t imagined this a couple of times in her head – she figured he’d be a little awkward, yes, but for the most part charming and witty and infuriatingly but endearingly smug. She’d insisted on dinner because she wanted to do things differently than she has in the past, spending time getting to know him outside the confines of masks and the office elevator’s emergency mood lighting.

The thing is, she’s always kind of liked Nathaniel; it’s just taken her a long time to decide whether she _wants_ to like him, which to her is nearly equally important and she still hasn’t quite figured it out. There’s a lot about him she feels obligated to despise, even, but from the moment she met him he’s never really stopped catching her off-guard. He challenges her in a way that Josh certainly never did; Greg had come close but in a slightly different sense that was more acerbic and forcefully self-reflexive that she probably needed at the time but that became inevitably toxic as they carried on. She’d known what Nathaniel had meant when he’d murmured _the two of us, we’re unstoppable_ before he’d kissed her at the masquerade because she’d felt that, too; felt like their allegiances combined made them infinitely stronger somehow, felt the chemistry that crackled electric between them.

What she feels now, though, is helpless and a little crushed, so when she’s finished poking at her meal she excuses herself to the bathroom to escape.

She takes longer than she probably needs to, studying herself in the mirror and taking note of every imperfection in her day-old makeup, every crease line in her office-hours dress. They’ve done this all wrong, maybe, she thinks – fumbling into it hesitant and raw instead planning the whole thing through. Her phone is heavy in her hand and she considers sending an SOS to Paula but thinks better of it; there’s too much that’s happened here she’s already neglected to tell.

As she’s making her way back she stops in her tracks when she catches sight of Nathaniel at the table, sitting despairingly with his head in his hands. It creates the oddest sensation in her chest and she furtively continues to watch him as he startles when the waiter appears with the cheque, shaking his head and rearranging himself back into a state of composure as he fishes for his credit card.

She thinks briefly of Josh, and Greg, and Robert, and how she’d told herself she was finally going to stop living her life like it needed to be a fairytale.

She recommences her approach with a surge of determination and rocks on her heels when she reaches him.

“So. Your place or mine?”

He looks up at her in confusion.

“No offense, but so far this date has left a lot to be desired. And momma didn’t raise no quitter, so I’m not bailing until certain expectations have been met. What do you say we get out of here and try to salvage this thing?”

 

* * *

 

She hasn’t been oblivious to the fact that Nathaniel is a different person when he’s alone – or masked and alone in a crowded room – with her; his carefully constructed persona starts to soften into something genuine and disarmingly earnest, where admissions like _I think they’re modern classics_ and _I just wanted to dance_ seem to tumble freely from him. True to her suspicions he relaxes visibly once they make it to his apartment, and as he pours them each a glass of wine she balances on her elbows on the counter, watching him with a tiny smile.

“So what does Nathaniel Plimpton the Third do in his spare time? You know, for funsies.”

He passes her a glass and shakes his head dismissively.

“I don’t really have a lot of spare time. Before work I usually go to the gym or for a run. I try to keep up with all the major law reviews, certain other academic publications, so I spend a bit of time reading – on a rare occasion I might go out but I don’t find the scene here of a particularly enticing standard. Sometimes I have to go to the country club or play golf with some clients. You know, normal stuff.”

“Yeah, wow, you sound like a regular Average Joe. And a riot.”

“And what’s so great about your Saturday nights, hmm? What kind of mind-blowing activities do you partake in that make your life so much more wholesome than mine?”

“Oh, you know. Similar stuff. Catch up with friends, see a movie. Drink rosé. Start out watching dumb videos of cats on YouTube but end up watching porn. Stalk all my exes on Facebook to make sure they’re miserable without me. Make up music videos about my life in my head. That kind of thing.”

“Riveting,” he quips.

“It is, actually,” she says defiantly before looking down at her drink, softening. “You know, when I lived in New York, my life was pretty similar to yours. I mean, minus the whole gym and jogging thing, obviously,” she clarifies to his amused smirk. “I know you’ll find it hard to believe, but I was very focused on my work. I put in ridiculously long hours, I never took a single vacation day. And I was numb to everything else. Which is partly why when they offered me junior partner, I turned them down and moved out here.”

“And promptly abandoned all semblance of a work ethic?” he guesses, arching an eyebrow.

“I was very easily distracted by other things in my life, yes. But my point is, even though I was stuck in a rut, I used to really enjoy learning, and working hard and being good at my job, which is a part of myself I think I’ve kind of forgotten along the way. What I’m saying is… maybe I could do with catching up on a few law reviews myself.  So maybe your Saturday night doesn’t sound so bad after all.”

He watches her for a moment, pensive, then forces himself to match her admission with one of his own.

“Sometimes, if I need a bit of a pick me up, I like to go to the zoo,” he says as casually as possible. “I find it… calming.”

The confession is delivered with a similar defensive undercurrent to the night in the elevator he professed his partiality to Harry Potter; almost as if he’s bracing himself for the inevitable scorn he would receive were he talking to mostly anybody else in his life. He doesn’t care to elaborate on the events leading up to his most recent visit, which is probably for the best because the delighted smile he receives in response to his admission causes a confusing twinge in the pit of his stomach.

“No way, I love the zoo. But I haven’t been since I left New York - we’ll have to go to one in LA sometime. You know, if we run out of stuffy academic journals to pour over,” she shrugs, nudging him with her leg.

 

* * *

 

She hadn’t originally planned on spending the night.

If anything, given her track record, she’d planned on exercising some restraint. But this doesn’t feel like an unmitigated impulse; it feels clear and present and deliberate, a long time coming and besides, she doesn’t see the point in holding out on something they’ve already done just to prove some arbitrary point.

For a long time they only kiss, lazy and languorous, and she realises eventually that he isn’t game to push it any further. Strangely, though, the immediate desperation to escalate isn’t there; there’s something oddly intoxicating about just being pressed against him on the couch, kissing dazedly, drowsily whilst still wearing all of their clothes. She can’t remember the last time she did that - just happily made out like a pair of teenagers to whom sex hasn’t yet become an automatic endgame - and figures if it has ever happened, its rate of occurrence would be relatively low.

It almost makes her want to put a stop to the evening there, just to preserve the isolated contentedness of the moment. Only almost, because eventually she grows restless at the state of sustained simmer and pulls back to fumble for the fastener on her dress.

“We don’t have to,” he says immediately, hands stilling on her hips.

“I know it’s fucked up because it’s kind of basic human decency but your ongoing commitment to consent is both pleasantly surprising and a huge turn on for me,” she informs him in a low, gravelly voice. Ignoring his bemused frown she lets her dress slide down off her shoulders, exposing her rapidly rising and falling lace-bound chest. His Adam’s apple bobs distractingly. “Yes. You have my consent so god, please touch me.”

He lets out a breath before complying willingly, his palms sliding up her sides to graze the underside of her breasts. She sighs in assent, dragging his mouth back to hers and focusing her fingers on unfastening each one of his buttons. He clearly has his confidence back which makes sense, she supposes; this has been the part he’s always been good at.

(Because he wants her. God, he can barely remember a time now where he hasn’t wanted her.

He didn’t know it was possible to get drunk off a person before kissing Rebecca, but somehow every encounter with her leaves him dazed and intoxicated, measuring out the gaps in between until he can taste her and touch her again.)

When she climbs off him to step out of her clothes he follows, powerless to resist, mouth chasing hers as he sheds his own and kicks them aside and she’s laughing quietly, giddy, grasping at his face as they topple keenly in a tangle on the bed.

 

* * *

 

She rouses early, only the barest hint of muted light visible through his curtains.

Nathaniel is curled protectively around her; his right arm slung possessively around her waist and she can feel each gentle chuff of his even breaths where his chin is tucked into the crook of her neck. It’s a lot to process first thing in the morning but she decides it isn’t the worst way to wake up in the world, and she stretches to find herself deliciously sore but deeply satisfied.

She needs the bathroom, and when she presses gently at his arm he makes a little grunting noise in his sleep and obediently rolls in the other direction, releasing her.

As she sits on the toilet she rubs her tender thighs together and hums. She feels oddly serene for someone that just slept with their boss for the second (well, technically fifth?) time, and when she catches sight of herself in the mirror, her skin flushed tell-tale pink, she splashes water on her face and congratulates herself for not freaking out.

When she climbs back into to the bed Nathaniel stirs and shifts instinctively towards her.

“Hey you,” she mumbles, dropping a peck on his jawline. “I should probably go home and shower.”

He groans and tugs her back towards him in protest.

“You can shower here.”

“I could, but since I didn’t have the foresight to pack for a sleepover I’d be wearing yesterday’s clothes to the office, which I’m definitely not one hundred percent above but would like to think I’m a little old for. You know, now that I’m thirty and all.”

“Right.”

She palms the side of his face, delighted when he nuzzles into it obligingly.

“So I’ll see you at work?”

“You’re still going to be late, aren’t you?”

“Oh yeah. Hey, maybe I should get you to write a tardy note for my boss. He’s kind of a slave driver.”

“Expecting you to put in the bare minimum effort and show up on time? Yeah, guy sounds like a real asshole.”

“After he just finished screwing my brains out? He’s pretty much the worst.”

Nathaniel makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, and silences her with a finger on her lips because if she doesn’t stop talking, neither one of them are going to be getting to the office on time.

“Weren’t you leaving?”

She grins triumphantly and pushes past his finger to steal a quick kiss before rolling out of the bed to look for her clothes.

“Rebecca, wait,” he calls after her and she stops, spinning on the ball of her foot to face him from the doorway. “At the risk of sounding uncool again - this was… nice, right?”

The smile on her face creeps wider as she finishes tugging up the zipper on her dress.

 

* * *

 

“You’re late,” he tells her later when she eventually breezes past him into the office, and as she sits down at her desk and hums at him in response she doesn’t even bother to fight the grin.

 


	2. ii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I totally lied about the super quick updates because I forgot real life was a thing but here’s the next part. I actually wrote a certain scene pre-3x07 so you can bet that episode pretty much killed me. Hope everyone had a fab Christmas and here’s 11k of Rethaniel being emotionally stunted horny dumbasses.

“I can feel you staring at me,” Rebecca says pointedly without glancing up from her work.

“You didn’t go home last night,” Paula says, a little smug.

“Says who?”

“Says your car that got locked in the garage overnight and the Uber you caught to work this morning. Fashionably late, might I add.”

Rebecca stops what she’s doing and shrugs.

“Maybe I locked my keys in the car.”

“Did you?”

“No,” she admits.

“I knew it,” Paula says triumphantly. “Mostly because I confirmed my suspicions with Heather, but I totally knew it anyway.”

“Okay. Fine. So I probably should have told you, but -”

“Uhbupbupbup,” Paula interrupts, shaking her hand at her. “Here’s the thing – I kind of don’t want to know.”

“Oh,” Rebecca says, taken aback.

“I mean, of course I want to know. I want to know every single juicy detail down to the exact angle of inclination – you know what I’m saying – but here’s the thing.” Paula folds her arms on the desk and leans in closer, dropping her voice. “Nathaniel’s my boss. He’s your boss, too; which is a whole other minefield that you’re going to have to navigate and I am so here for you, whatever you need. But I’ve been thinking about it, chicken, and I think we need to set some healthy boundaries on this one because at the end of the day, I still need to be able to look that man in the eye.”

“Oh my god, Paula you are so right,” Rebecca realises, touching her friend’s arm apologetically. “This is a super weird conflict of interest for you. We don’t have to talk about it, like, at all, if you don’t want to.”

“I mean, we kind of do,” Paula disagrees. “I gotta know what’s going on in my best gal’s life. Especially with you navigating a new relationship after the whole Josh thing – that’s got to be hard, right? All I’m saying is, maybe we can be selective with the details.”

“Hey – what if we came up with like, a code name or something? That could be fun, right? And we can pretend we’re talking about someone else. Like, say… Benjamin.”

“Benjamin. Right. I can work with that,” Paula nods, considering it. “So how was your night with… Benjamin? The PG version.”

“It was… really nice, actually. I mean, dinner was a complete disaster and I nearly called you to come rescue me a whole bunch of times but once we got back to his place we talked and… played Scrabble,” she says, wide-eyed off Paula’s look. “And I know what you’re thinking – maybe it was too soon to play Scrabble. But the truth is, we’ve played Scrabble a couple of times before and Benjamin has proven himself to be a very deft wordsmith, so.”

“Wow,” Paula says. “You two jumped right to the board games, huh?”

“The Scrabble was extremely satisfying. All three rounds were very high scoring.”

“Okay,” Paula cuts in quickly. “Maybe let’s leave the metaphor there for now. But _damn_ , you go girl,” she adds with an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Rebecca turns obediently back to her computer and bites her lip to stifle the laugh.

 

* * *

 

Despite his initial somewhat flustered behaviour following their original _les liaisons dangereuses,_ Nathaniel seems to be alarmingly adept at compartmentalising in the workplace. Rebecca would be disappointed by the distinct sudden lack of office sexual tension were it not for the fact that their extra-curricular activities have become a more than satisfactory alternative; lingering looks over coffee creamer are all well and good but hardly a substitute for actual sex, which - after a brief stint of celibacy that she managed to maintain for far longer than she ever expected - is a welcome release in more ways than one.

When the manila envelope appears on her desk Friday morning – dropped there unceremoniously, hand-delivered by George, as witnessed by Paula – the contents catches her equally off guard as the rush of anger that immediately follows, unrestrained ire clawing its way through her veins until her whole body feels sharp and hot.

“Uh, what the hell is this?” she demands, barraging her way through the door into his office.

Nathaniel glances up at her from his keyboard unperturbed, his hand curling up in a noncommittal shrug.

“It’s a relationship contract. I had George draw it up.”

“ _Excuse_ me?”

“You and I dating – with me being your boss, you being my impossible to control subordinate – frankly it’s a HR disaster waiting to happen. This just keeps us on top of any… issues that may arise later down the line. Rules out any potential sexual harassment lawsuits – some of our courtship could be misconstrued -”

“Uh, not misconstrued. You propositioned me for sex in the company elevator, which is very much sexual harassment - hashtag me too. So, that’s a conversation we should probably circle back to at some point.”

“Yeah, but then there was that kiss that you initiated, and your whole boardroom stunt, and the coming to my apartment in a trench coat to seduce me – I figured we could just call it even.” He makes a dismissive waving motion before turning back to his computer and typing. “Anyway, have a read; let me know your thoughts.”

“Yeah, so I’ve read it. Here are my thoughts. This contract is stupid, and gratuitous, and insulting, and misogynistic, and inane, and officious -”

“Well now you’re just listing SAT prep words.”

His continued cool composure only fuels her outrage.

“Where do you get off deciding that we need a piece of paper to legitimise what we choose to do in our spare time? What are we, married now? Contractually obligated fuck buddies? In sickness and in health or until something better comes along to do us part?”

His eyebrows shoot up briefly but he manages to smooth his expression back down into one of exasperation.

“You’re overreacting. This exactly the kind of inappropriate workplace interaction I was hoping this would help avoid.”

“Don’t tell me I’m overreacting,” she snarls. “Also, George drew this up? Are you fucking kidding me? Do you bring your little lackey in to help wrangle all of your sexual conquests?”

“Oh, like you don’t tell Paula every sordid detail of your love life.”

“ _That’s_ different. _We’re_ best friends!” she shouts back, scrunching her face up at him before stalking out and letting the door slam shut behind her.

She nearly crashes into Maya who is hovering nervously outside.

“Is this a bad time to ask you if you could convince Nathaniel to sign off on my vacation days? I need to go visit my cousin in Montauk and he hasn’t – yeah, okay, I guess I should just remind him myself,” she stammers to Rebecca’s withering look.

 

* * *

 

“Home on a Saturday night – what gives?” Heather asks when she finds her sprawled out on the couch in her pajamas. “I assumed you’d be shacked up with Michael Clayton for the weekend again.”

“I can spend time on my own,” Rebecca says defensively. “Just because I’m seeing somebody doesn’t mean I have to spend every waking minute with them.”

Heather stares at her for a moment, clearly unconvinced.

“Cool. So you two are fighting already, huh? Do you want to talk about it? Feel free to say no, I won’t mind.”

Rebecca sits up and crosses her arms over her chest, scowling.

“He’s just such an arrogant jerk, you know? Like I always knew that about him, but he lulled me into a false sense of security by being all patient and caring and sweet while I was in recovery, and planning that amazing birthday party for me. Ugh. And then he waited until I was exposed and vulnerable to just… swoop in and take advantage.”

“Take advantage? I’m confused. Did he -”

“No,” Rebecca interrupts, dismissively. “The sex has been an enthusiastic yes from both parties. But then he just had to ruin all that by slapping me with this super offensive _relationship contract_ – can you believe that? He wants me to sign a bunch of stuff saying if we break up I won’t go all crazy on him and like, try to burn his house down, or whatever.”

“Wait,” Heather says, finally looking suitably offended on her behalf. “It actually said that that? Like, those are the actual terms?”

“Well, no,” Rebecca concedes. She rises onto her knees and jabs her finger in her housemate’s direction. “But, that’s totally what the whole thing was getting at. You can’t really get away with using blatant ableist language like that, but I’m not stupid. I can read between the lines.”

Heather crosses her arms and considers this, her stance cautious.

“Hmm. You don’t happen to have this contract thing here, do you?” When Rebecca gestures aggressively to the stack of papers laying on top of her purse she picks them up and skims them, confusion mounting. “I’m not like, a lawyer or anything – don’t get me wrong,” she says carefully. “But I think you’ve gotten this whole thing backwards. This seems like a pretty stock-standard waiver. If anything I’d say he’s trying to protect you if things go south, so. There’s that.”

“No, uh-uh,” Rebecca disagrees, shaking her head emphatically and wrapping her arms around herself. “He knows all this stuff about me, about what I’m like. What I did to Robert, and Josh. That’s what this whole thing is.”

Heather sighs and drops down on the couch next to her, patting her friend awkwardly on the knee.

“So, also not to be your therapist,” she points out, “but you’re totally spiralling, and you’re projecting your own fears about your past failed relationships onto your new one. Dating your boss is generally considered an ill-advised descent into the danger zone – you get that, right?  Honestly, at best the dude’s just looking out for you. At worst, he’s maybe feeling a little insecure about where he stands and is seeking tangible reassurance from you in the form of signing this piece of paper that you’ve completely misinterpreted and blown out of proportion. So, he’s probably regretting that.”

Deflating, Rebecca snatches back the contract, her posture shifting from defensive to doubtful; Heather has an infuriating habit of imparting monotone wisdom and wake up calls that end up making too much sense.

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath before forcing herself to reread the pages with impartial eyes.

“Oh my god,” she groans when she’s finished, tipping her head back against the couch in despair. “You’re right. I’m an idiot. This is so embarrassing.”

Heather shrugs in a way that says both _told you so_ and _what can you do?_

“I should go apologise, right?” Rebecca asks.

“I’m not saying don’t make the guy squirm,” Heather says, holding Rebecca in her seat with a firm hand on her shoulder. “It was still kind of a dick move. Dude can wait ‘til Monday. Just cos you’re like, seeing someone, doesn’t mean you have to spend every waking minute with them, right?”

“Don’t mock me,” Rebecca sniffs, but settles resignedly back onto the couch. “Thanks, Heather.”

“Any time. Now shut up – I’m trying to binge watch the new season of Orange is the New Black so I don’t get spoiled online, and you have a habit of talking through, like, all the important parts and I’d rather you didn’t.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” Rebecca says quietly. “Is it okay if I come in?”

He steps back and pulls the door wider, gesturing her inside. She moves past him and turns, waiting for him to close it behind them.

“So I’m an idiot, and I shouldn’t have yelled at you the way I did. I mean, a little discussion leading up to that envelope being left on my desk would have been nice, but I completely overreacted, and I’m sorry.”

Nathaniel sighs and scrubs a hand over his chin.

“No. You had every right to be angry - I was being… inconsiderate. You don’t have to sign that stupid contract.”

“No, I do. And I already did. I left it on your desk this afternoon. I had Paula go over it with me and it was… surprisingly fair. You were right. Inter-office romances are never ideal, and you should protect yourself. And the firm.”

She shrugs at him as she takes a seat on his couch, indicating with her head that he should join her. When he obediently takes the seat beside her she looks down at her hands, folded in her lap.

“When you gave me that contract it kind of felt like you were safeguarding yourself against my crazy. Which whilst probably smart, stung a little. But now I see that wasn’t it at all. You wanted to know what this is. If I was serious about us. And I didn’t exactly give you an encouraging response.”

He clears his throat and avoids her gaze, but she reaches up and steers his face back towards hers with her palm on the side of his cheek.

“I’m serious. So you’re stuck with me, because we’re doing this. No legally binding document required.”

She punctuates her point with a kiss, twisting towards him, her hand moving up to the back of his neck to pull him down to her. Nathaniel finds himself responding embarrassingly eagerly, hands sliding immediately into her hair. When she draws back for air it’s only minutely, their noses still brushing, breaths mingling.  

“So between my whole birthday party and that little spat in your office the other day, I feel like the cat is kind of out of the bag at work, huh?”

“And if not, filing an official document with HR will probably do it,” he agrees. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

“Who cares. Who cares if everybody knows. It’s fine. They’ll be cool with it.”

“As long as you realise you’re about to be endlessly plagued by every last one of those morons.”

She frowns at him as she shifts up onto her knees, insinuating herself onto his lap.

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is, I like my employees to work, which seems to constantly confound a lot of the people in that office. I’m the mean boss but you – you’re everybody’s best friend. The minute I start exerting pressure they’re going to come crawling to you, wanting you to convince me to ease up. There will be no easing.”

“Really, you think everyone thinks I’m their best friend? Sorry, not the point,” she backtracks. “No. No. That won’t happen. That’s not a thing that will happen.”

He raises his eyebrows at her as his hands come up to settle on her waist.

“If you say so.”

“I do say so,” she retorts, and changes the subject by pulling her shirt off over her head.

 

* * *

 

It turns out it’s a thing that happens.

She makes it approximately two steps out of the conference room where she’s been quietly working towards the elevator before she’s accosted.

Apparently Maya has tickets to a poetry slam on the weekend that she can’t get out of and Jim needs to be home for a rent inspection. Mrs Hernandez questions her rudely on the perceived reality of her not having better things to do with her life outside pushing paper on a weekend and Tim laments the wrath of his wife; Paula is thankfully the least bombarding one in the herd but she’s just checking Rebecca realises she has children _and_ is trying to take the bar exam, right?

Rebecca rolls her eyes and pushes through without dignifying anybody with a response, dumping her things back on her desk before continuing on to Nathaniel’s office, unannounced.

“Hey. So kind of a funny question - did you maybe tell everybody they had to work on Saturday just to prove a stupid point?”

He finishes up typing before turning to look at her, the hint of an infuriating smile twitching on his lips.

“I mean, the work did need to get done, so it was kind of a win-win for me.”

“Well, congratulations. You get to say I told you so. But I didn’t do it. I didn’t try to convince you otherwise. So, yay for me.”

“Yay for you. And also, I told you so.” He gives her a smug smile to punctuate. “Are you leaving?”

“Yeah, I’m done for the day. You?”

“Still got some things to finish up, but I will see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow – did we have plans?”

He lifts his chin at her and jabs his pointer finger in the direction of her cubicle.

“Yes. To work.”

She pulls a face and scrunches her hands into fists but breathes dramatically through it.

“Oh, that old thing. See, I was kind of planning to go shopping with Valencia -”

“Nope. Not happening.”

“Can ya blame a gal for trying?”

“See you at nine a.m. Sharp.”

She wiggles her eyebrows at him challengingly.

“Or what?”

He gives her an exasperated look.

“Get out of my office.”

 

* * *

 

“So aside from the whole working on a weekend incident,” Rebecca begins as she’s clearing the dishes from their Saturday night dinner, “no one’s really said anything to me. It’s weird, right? Are we more discreet than I thought?”

Nathaniel gives a dry laugh as he joins her in the kitchen, carrying the last of the bowls.

“I kind of have the sneaking suspicion it might be an out-of-respect thing,” he says. “And despite the fact that I’m supposed to be the boss, I don’t mean for me.” He meets her eyes and she flushes a little at the implied compliment. “But you’re right. Nobody at work has batted an eyelid, which I feel like should probably concern me more? Darryl keeps catching my eye and making this face where his mouth is turned down but he’s also smiling? And Maya wanted me to know that she ‘ships’ us – I don’t know what that means.”

“Nor do you want to,” she assures him, giving him a gentle pat.

“My father would never in a million years approve. Of me dating an employee that is, not you specifically – I haven’t exactly decided what he’d think of you yet – but he’d have some crass saying about not defecating where you consume food.”

“Do you always blindly do everything your daddy tells you to?”

“Generally, yes.”

“Yeah, I thought so. Just to circle back to your dad’s opinion of me – no offense but even though I’ve never met him personally I kind of hate him and the whole pervasive image of white privilege and toxic masculinity that he stands for – but you should know that I’m a parent pleaser, pleasing parents that aren’t my own is a talent of mine that I take very seriously so were I to be placed in a position where I would have to meet him, ample warning would be desirable.”

“Yeah, you’re probably not going to get that. He likes to drop by unannounced to keep me on my toes.”

“Hmm, speaking of being on ones toes,” she hums, rising up on to her tip-toes to kiss him.

He deposits the bowls he’s still holding in the sink behind her with a clank and walks her backwards towards the bed until her knees hit the edge and they buckle.

“Interesting segue into making out,” he murmurs, drawing back to tease. “Should I be concerned?”

Rebecca blanches.

“Yeah, don’t even go there,” she breathes, shaking her head before pulling his mouth back to hers to shut him up.

 

* * *

 

Having sex on the regular again turns out to be a definite life improvement.

Making love with Josh had been just that - a mess of flowery clichés - because she’d lived out their entire relationship with rose coloured glasses on. Fucking Greg had been kind of silly and laughing and acrobatic and had a lot to do with stubborn endurance; if she’s perfectly honest Nathaniel has been reasonably vanilla so far in comparison but what the sex lacks in pushing the boundaries of creativity it more than makes up for in intensity, his every movement heady and desperate and all-encompassing.

They barely make it in the door some nights before they’re on each other, climbing onto the couch in a tangle of frantic limbs.

Rebecca grabs a hold of his tie and yanks him roughly down towards her for a kiss.

“God, I’ve always wanted to do that,” she sighs ruggedly.

“To me specifically or just in general?” he murmurs, eyes on her lips.

“Just in general. I’ve never really properly dated anyone that wears ties enough for it to work out.”

“Well, I’m glad to be of service.”

“I mean I screwed my fair share of lawyers back in New York but the tie pulling felt like a very situational thing that never really came up.”

He draws back far enough to give her a funny look.

“You need to stop talking.”

“Yeah, okay, that’s fair.” His tugs her blouse out from where it’s tucked into the band of her skirt and she arches into him at the heat of his hands on the bare skin of her back. “So this might be a little weird,” she says, a little breathlessly as he kisses his way down her throat.

“Mmm?”

“Remember when I - when I chased you around the office? And tried to kill you - with a pen?”

Nathaniel pulls himself away from her earlobe to groan into her neck.

“God, that was so hot,” he breathes into her mouth before kissing it.

“Right?”

He seems to catch onto her train of thought because he leans back from her to fish in his pocket. It’s a very nice pen; obsidian black with his family name carved into it in gold. Her breath catches when he clicks down on it.

“This is a little messed up, right?” he asks, both their eyes on the writing instrument being held up between them.

“Don’t kink shame me,” she accuses, and her fingers wrap around the barrel.

She gives him a head start before she’s scrambling over the back of the couch after him; an arm chair, his dining table, the kitchen bench between them before he tips backwards on the bed and lets her catch him, the cool metal of the pen a jolt against his flushed skin. She pulls on the tie again, hard, but then his lips are on hers whilst he unknots it hurriedly and she kicks off her shoes and makes quick work of his shirt buttons.

She climbs over him and cocoons herself around his body, triumphant and laughing, until he flips them and traps her beneath him.

“Gotcha,” he murmurs, nose nearly brushing her own.

She tilts her chin haughtily and rolls her hips, earning herself a sharp intake of breath from Nathaniel who stills her with a hand on her waist.

“Barely,” she says in a sing-song voice, “and not for long.”

(He tries not to think too much about the words.)

 

* * *

 

“Do you have a _boy_ here?”

Rebecca’s eyes fly open and she sits up too suddenly, clutching her sheets to her bare chest in confusion.

It’s early; she’s in her own bed for the first time in a few days and the spot next to her is empty but warm, the sound of running water telling her Nathaniel is taking a shower. A glance at the clock on her nightstand reveals she doesn’t need to be up for work for nearly another hour. She rubs her eyes and blinks, recalling the reason she jerked awake in the first place.

“No. Nope. You can’t be here. Nuh-uh.”

The annoying recurring vision of her younger self is standing accusingly at the end of the bed, poking her toe somewhat disgustedly at the pile of Nathaniel’s clothes strewn on the floor.

“Why? Because you’re having an adult sleepover?” the younger girl sasses, hand on her hip.

“ _No,_ although that does make it worse. How old are you, anyway? This whole situation isn’t particularly PG so I feel like I’m corrupting you. Is it possible to corrupt a figment of my imagination?”

“I’m thirteen and I recently kissed a boy for the first time, so I definitely have a lot of questions about all this.”

“Right! Dennis Brownstein during seven minutes in heaven at Jenna Herschel’s birthday? That was fairly decent as far as first pecks go. I mean, no one cried, which is a definite improvement on some kisses you have to look forward to in your future. Not to be a downer or anything.”

“It was okay. I guess he wasn’t the worst person I could have been locked in a closet with. I mean, the Pasternack twins were at that party too.”

“Hmm, don’t write them off. Hot tip – Adam gets ripped in senior year.”

Tugging the sheet completely off in order to wrap it securely around herself, Rebecca swings out the side of the bed to start searching for her clothes; her walking talking manifestations of her neuroses aren’t exactly comforting at the best of times but being in such a blatant state of undress around a judgemental thirteen year old girl definitely doesn’t help.

“Looking for these?” her younger self asks, pulling a face as she dangles Rebecca’s La Perla underwear off her index finger.

“Okay, give me those,” she snaps, cheeks hot, snatching them off the girl and discretely attempting to clothe herself within the confines of the sheet. “Not that I wouldn’t love to spend the morning nurturing your budding sex positivity, but you need to leave. I’m not even anxious right now, so. I don’t know why you’re here.”

“You keep telling yourself that. The fact is, I’m here because _you,”_ she emphasises, tapping her temple aggressively with her fingers, “need me to be.”

“I’m not crazy, FYI. You shouldn’t be here anymore. I have a personality disorder but I’m working through it. I’m in therapy. Lots of it. There’s workbooks.”

“I love a good work book,” her younger self sighs earnestly.

“The last time you were here we made some terrible decisions.”

“Nuh-uh – that was all on you.”

The girl plops down on the end of the bed and swings her legs up until she’s sitting Indian-style. Rebecca hesitates before mirroring her, cross-legged and trying to be calm.

“So let’s do this. Lay it on me. Preferably before my slumber party partner comes back, because even though he knows a lot of scary stuff about me I’m not sure how he’d take walking in on me literally talking to myself.”

“Yeah, he shouldn’t be here.”

“Like, in my shower? Heather’s not home. It’s fine. We’re always at his apartment, I felt like I should return the favour. You know, give him a chance to wash his sheets.”

“Like, _in your life._ Romantically. You’re _supposed_ to be working on yourself. Do you not remember what happened with the last guy you fell for? And the one before that? And the one before that? Are you _trying_ to smash that last little piece of your sad pathetic broken heart you have left?”

“Hey,” Rebecca says defensively, eyebrows furrowing, forlorn.

“That dude’s super fly but he’s also kind of a jerk. He’s told you multiple times that commitment is stupid. You think just because he brought you roses once you’ve managed to convince him otherwise? Wake up, dumb-dumb. Not to mention you’ve taken your tendency to pursue men unavailable to you back to the extreme of a highly inappropriate power dynamic – this is Robert all over again. First your professor, now your boss – who’s next, your therapist? I know you think he’s hot.”

“You know what, I don’t like your tone, young lady. You’re kind of an obnoxious know-it-all; no wonder we were bullied in middle school.”

Her younger self opens her mouth in an offended, haughty ‘o’, but before she can respond, Rebecca hears the water shut off in the shower and she’s gone.

“Hey, you’re up,” Nathaniel greets from the doorway, combing his fingers through his still-wet hair. “Did I wake you? It’s still early.”

She turns and forces a smile but she can’t quite make the crease leave her forehead and she knows he catches it, his own smile fading as he moves to stand in front of her.

“Everything okay?”

“I don’t know. No.” She scratches her head. “I think I’m having like a dark day, or something.”

Concern etches onto his features as he shifts on his feet, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.

“Oh. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really. I might just make some tea and go back to bed for a bit? Maybe sleep it off. Are you heading home?”

“I can stay,” he insists. “I’ll make you some tea. What do you want?”

“No, it’s fine – really,” she says, shaking her head. “Honestly, I’m just going to get back into bed. You should go for your run, or whatever.”

She stifles a yawn and crawls back under the covers, tugging them up to her chin and rolling on to her side to look at him.

“Do you need to take a personal day?” he asks, and her eyebrows shoot up her head.

“Did you just offer me preferential treatment? Because I know for a fact you don’t believe in sick days.”

“Rebecca…”

“Nathaniel, I’m fine,” she whines, flinging an arm over her eyes. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Would you please just go for your run? I’ll see you at work. If you let me go back to sleep right now I might even be on time.”

“Yeah, well. I’ll believe that when I see it,” he makes himself say, though the barb doesn’t quite land. When she widens her eyes at him expectantly he raises his hands in defence before stooping to gather his clothes. “Okay, okay – I’ll go.”

When she gets to work Nathaniel passes her cubicle without comment and when a tall takeaway cup materialises on her desk in his wake she lifts the lid and sniffs the peppermint scented steam with a bemused but grateful smile, trying to ignore the nagging feeling in her chest that hasn’t gone away.

 

* * *

 

They spend the next few nights at her place because Heather’s out of town and she wants to take advantage; plus he’s always been a lot better than her at getting up early to sneak home to change.

When she wakes in the middle of the night she’s alone, sheets pooled around her, the space next to her cool and empty. Confused, she pads silently out into the kitchen where she finds Nathaniel perched on one of the breakfast stools, his weary face illuminated by the cool white glow of his laptop. At first she frowns, thinking he’s working, but then she reads the words on the page over his shoulder and something catches in her chest.

“You know, when my doctor diagnosed me, he warned me against Googling my condition on the internet.”

He flinches and looks up at her with the same abashed face he wore when she caught him leaving roses on her doorstep all those months ago. At first he makes a move to close his computer, hands hovering at the edge of the monitor; he makes the realisation though that without it, the kitchen will be plunged into darkness so he stops himself, instead minimising the browser and pushing it away from himself on the counter.

“I thought you were asleep.”

She smiles softly at him.

“I was. You were researching me?”

“You’re not mad?”

“No, it’s kind of sweet, actually. So how long have you been at this? What have you learned? Are you now a certified BPD whisperer?”

He gives her a reluctant smile.

“Rebecca… you know you can talk to me about stuff, right? This isn’t just sex, for me. I want to be here for you. I want you to be able to talk to me.”

“Is that what Wikipedia told you to say?” she wisecracks, then stills at the pained look on his face. “Sorry. Hey, I know that.” She steps between his legs and slides her hands reassuringly up his chest. “I know you’ve got my back. And that means a lot. This isn’t just sex for me either. I mean, I do have a very high sex drive and you look like… well, you, so. And it’s kind of been a dry last few months, if you know what I’m saying, so sometimes I’m just horny like, all of the time.” He lets out an amused huff and she turns around, leaning back against him and absently toying with one of her curls. “This isn’t easy for me. I’ve given a lot of myself to certain people in the past and they’ve completely broken my heart.”

“I know that,” he says quietly. He slides an arm around her waist and when he speaks it’s almost directly in her ear. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to push. I –”

“You already know all my deep dark secrets,” she interrupts. “I mean, the gist of them, anyway. This is kind of already accidentally the most honest and open relationship I’ve ever had with a man, which really only speaks volumes about my issues because no offense, we didn’t start off on a particularly healthy foot either, so to speak.”

Nathaniel rests his head on her shoulder and hums sleepily, eliciting a yawn from her in response. After a moment of relaxing completely against him and allowing her eyes to fall shut she shifts, turning in his arms.

“We should go back to bed,” she mumbles, lips grazing his throat. When he cracks an eyelid to arch a questioning brow at her she adds, “To sleep.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, acquiescing when her hand swings back into his to pull him along behind her, reaching over to close his laptop as she tugs him out of the kitchen and back to her bedroom.

 

* * *

 

“I’ve been seeing someone,” Rebecca blurts out at her next therapy session. “I feel like maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am. Failed relationships have been a huge trigger for me, obviously, and I know I’m supposed to be working on like, loving myself and learning to be alone, but I have been doing that for awhile, and he’s tall and sexy and he makes me laugh, which is important, right? And being alone is great and all but sometimes it’s just nice to have someone to not-watch TV with you and wrestle you for the blankets at night, and also I really, really, really like the sex so please don’t tell me not to see him anymore.”

Dr Shin lets out a deep breath, but to her surprise he looks almost amused.

“Rebecca, nobody expects you to be a nun. And nobody can decide when you’re ready to be in a relationship again except yourself. What’s important here is that we acknowledge the problems you had with your previous relationships so we can better equip you to deal with the strains of a new one.” He sits back in his chair, regarding her. “For starters, and this may be an uncomfortable topic for you, but I think we need to address it if you’re going to proceed with this new person in your life – I strongly suspect you may have a tendency to use sex as weapon within your relationships to avoid dealing with deeper issues.”

“What? No I don’t,” she protests immediately, but -

_(“I mean, not that I’m complaining, because the sex is great and all,” Nathaniel pants, trying his best to focus despite her proximity to his zipper, “but I was kind of thinking we could… hang out? And talk?”_

_“Yeah, it’s kind of hard to talk when my mouth is full,” she simpers, her nails grazing torturously at the skin of his thighs.)_

“Okay,” she concedes, “maybe I do that a little bit.”

She spends most of the session sinking lower and lower into her chair.

 

* * *

 

“Good news,” she says when she arrives on Nathaniel’s door step later that evening with a bag of takeout she knows he’s not going to touch. “I told my doctor about you and he’s totally down with us seeing each other. Bad news - my homework is that we can’t have sex for two weeks. What are your feelings on egg rolls?”

 

* * *

 

Two weeks turns out to be a _really_ long time.

In contrast the realisation that okay, yeah, maybe their relationship up until this point has pretty much entirely been based on sex hits Rebecca relatively quickly, and being called out on it makes her more than a little prickly.

“We do other stuff,” she grouches to Paula over the divider between their desks. “So maybe we don’t really go out, or anything – but we’re busy. He’s basically a workaholic and I have therapy and sometimes the only time we have together is bedtime. Our first date was a disaster I don’t think either of us is in a hurry to repeat. Plus, I’m kind of just low key addicted to this one thing he does with his mouth where -”

“Okay,” Paula interrupts, waving her hand as if to shoo away the rest of Rebecca’s sentence. “But spending some time together isn’t a bad thing. And I mean, Nath- _Benjamin_ , is loaded, right? Let him take you out and spoil you once in awhile. You’ve been working a lot, too – well done on focusing up, by the way - so I’m sure you could do with a break. Hey – maybe the two of you should go away for the weekend. Get out of town for a few days.”

“Mm, maybe. But then we’d have to stay in a hotel which just seems like, you know, a waste, considering.”

“Hey,” Nathaniel greets, sidling up to her desk, his voice a little higher than usual in a way that makes Rebecca sit back in her chair and regard him warily.

“Hey,” she says.

“So, I have to go back to LA this weekend,” he tells her, his gaze uncomfortably shifting to Paula, who raises her eyebrows knowingly at Rebecca before pushing away from her desk and announcing that she’s going to make some coffee.

“Okay?”

“Yeah, just a consult on a case my dad’s firm is handling and a favour to an old friend. I’ll leave Friday night, come back Sunday. Probably catch up with some people while I’m down there. I know we talked about doing something this weekend so I just wanted to run it by you, check that it’s okay.”

“If I said no would you still go?” she asks, raising a brow.

He laughs awkwardly and inclines his head.

“It was kind of more of a formality.”

“Yeah, I figured,” she says. “But thanks for checking in. So who’s the consult for? Anyone I know of?”

Nathaniel stares at her a moment, tongue darting out to wet his lips. He tugs on his collar and clears his throat.

“No one you’ve met officially,” he says slowly. “But you have seen her before. She was here a few weeks ago, actually. She’s an old friend from law school.”

It takes Rebecca a second to connect the dots but when she does it’s accompanied by an unwelcome twist in her gut.

“Right,” she says. “Your long-legged mystery lady friend. The one you weren’t sneaking off to have sex with at my birthday.”

“Rebecca.”

“So back in law school, did you two…” She trails off and makes a semi obscene gesture with her fingers that has Nathaniel glancing around in a panic to make sure no one’s watching them. “Well?”

He works his jaw but says nothing, eventually meeting her eyes, the answer very clearly written all over his face.

“Huh. Interesting.”

“Rebecca, I don’t want to fight with you, but if you’re going to be weird about this, maybe we should step into my office.”

The realisation that he’s deliberately told her this out in the bullpen in an attempt to police her reaction occurs to her, and the part of her that really wanted to be a theatre major in college briefly considers making a scene to spite him but instead she tosses him a scathing smile before taking him up on his suggestion and striding briskly for his glass door.

“If I’m going to be weird about this?” she parrots back at him with wide eyes once he’s closed it behind them.

“Rebecca, I’m just trying to be honest with you here. There’s nothing untoward about this trip. It’s purely business.”

She shakes her head, curls swinging, because she gets what he’s saying – gets that he’s making an effort and offering up information he technically wasn’t obligated to give, but something about it still _bothers_  her –

“Don’t you trust me?”

\- and there it is.

“No,” she says slowly, only just realising it herself. She shrugs apologetically as she shakes her head. “I’m sorry. But I don’t trust you.” She swallows at the hurt look on his face and takes a step back. “We… we shouldn’t have this conversation here. I have to go.”

She takes the rest of the afternoon off.

 

* * *

 

“Well, there’s that problem solved. You’ve probably completely scared him off with your jealous little melt down. It’s probably for the best. That girl looked like a super model, and you look like, well… us. Now they can have perfect blonde babies together and you can go back to focusing on what’s important.”

Rebecca scrubs the butts of her hands over her eyes, her fingernails digging angry crescent moons into the soft flesh of her palms.

“You,” she hisses at her thirteen year old self. “This is all your fault. Why won’t you just leave me alone?”

Her phone vibrates on the couch cushions beside her, Nathaniel’s caller ID blinking at her on the screen. She pulls her knees up to her chest, hugging them, and ignores it.

“I already told you,” the girl says dramatically, rolling her eyes and tapping her temple. “You -”

“Yeah, I have issues. I get it,” Rebecca snaps.

The call ends but her phone buzzes again. A text this time; she tries to disregard it but ultimately caves in.

_Can I come over? I think we need to talk more about what happened earlier._

While she’s staring at it, reluctant to respond, another message appears.

_Please don’t shut me out._

She scrunches her eyes shut at that, heart twisting, and takes a deep breath. When she opens her eyes the room is empty again but still feels too small and she sighs shakily before typing out a reply.

_I’ll come to yours. See you in 15?_

 

* * *

 

He answers the door too quickly when she rings his doorbell, like he’s been hovering, waiting for her. She figures he’s not long home because he’s still in his suit and she feels uncomfortably underdressed in her sweats and baggy shirt in comparison.  

“I can cancel the trip,” he says immediately. “It’s done. It’s cancelled. I won’t go.”

“No,” she says hoarsely, scratching absently at her head as she shakes it. “You should go. It would be unprofessional not to, and it would just piss off your dad.”

She walks over to his couch and drops unceremoniously onto it, eyes flicking up to the ceiling. She can feel him watching her, eyes boring into her, but she can’t find the right thing to say so she says nothing and just waits. He shoves his hands into his pockets and frowns.

“So I know I’m not exactly the posterchild for modern romance, but pardon me for asking - what exactly have I done that’s gotten you so spooked?”

“Honestly?” she asks, swallowing.

“Honestly.”

She takes a deep breath and looks down at her hands before steadying herself and meeting his imploring gaze.

“All you told me, over and over, was that monogamy is stupid. Relationships are boring. It’s the thrill of the chase. And now… this chase is over, so… I’m waiting for you to get bored.”

He stares at her, visibly taken aback by her confession.

“Rebecca, I haven’t been bored since I met you.” He gives her a small, sad smile. “How could I be?”

“And I wish I could believe you,” she says honestly. “But that’s going to take some time. I’m sorry.”

His panic at the sharp downturn their relationship seems to be taking ricochets wildly in his brain, transmogrifying unexpectedly into tetchy defensiveness.

“Well for what it’s worth you don’t exactly inspire much faith in me, either,” he says, more than a little dourly.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“When we first met, you hated me. Everything about me, and what I stood for. And when you did take an interest in me, it was only because you thought I was a sociopath that could teach you how to do evil things. The ‘worst person you’d ever met’ _._ And then when I did all those bad things you said you wanted, even that wasn’t good enough for you.”

“That… that was… I didn’t mean that. You’re not the worst person I’d ever met. You’re not even the second worst.”

“That’s not the same as thinking I’m a good person.”

“Since when do you care about being a good person?”

“It doesn’t matter if I care – but it matters what _you_ think! Because if you don’t think I’m a good person, why are you even here? Do you actually like me, or am I just another one of your endless attempts at self-sabotage? Every day I’m worried that you’re going to wake up and realise that I’m not special. That I’m just another symptom someone’s going to tell you to train yourself to work around.”

He looks equally stunned by his words as she does and lets out a heavy breath, running a desperate hand through his hair.

“What? Nathaniel,” she says, tilting her head, distraught. “Oh my god, no. That’s not true. That’s not going to happen. And I like you,” she insists.

“Name one thing about me you like.”

“I… like… your hair. And your strong jawline.”

She closes her eyes and shakes her head, knowing she’s being facetious.

“Thank you,” he says, sarcastically, “for that extremely eloquent admission. It must have been very hard for you.”

“Well forgive me for not having an essay prepared purely for the purpose of stroking your already oversized ego,” she retorts, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s not any one particular thing, okay? Let’s just say you have a certain _je ne sais quoi_ that appeals to me and I’ll make no apologies for it. I see in you a kindred spirit. A twin flame.”

When he passes by her, pacing, she reaches out and grabs his hand, tugging him insistently towards her until he begrudgingly joins her on the couch, unfastening his suit jacket to sit down. She cups his face in her hands.

“Is my fave problematic? Yeah, probably. But if you do objectionable things I’m going to call you out on them. That’s what friends… and girlfriends – that’s right, I went there,” she says, squinting at him at her use of the ‘g’ word, “- are for. Because now you’re obligated to listen to me. So you can try going back to pretending that you’re a heartless arrogant prick if you want, but I’ll just be over here in the corner, challenging your word view and trying to keep your head out of your ass. As I hope you’d do mine, by the way. Because might I remind you, I’m not exactly in the running for Person of the Year myself.” She lets go of his face to smooth her hands over his chest and up to rest on his shoulders. “I was so caught up in my own insecurities that it never occurred to me that you’d be having them too. So I’m sorry. And actually kind of relieved. Is that a stupid thing to say?”

“No,” he says, a little reluctantly. “It’s not stupid.”

Rebecca sighs and rests her forehead against his, hands fisting in the fabric of his suit. She slants down to kiss him but he draws back before she can, the simple sting of the rejection smarting more than she’d like to admit.

He scrubs his hand down over his face.

“I’m kind of tired, do you mind if we just get some sleep?”

“Oh,” she says, drawing back to sit up. “Okay. I guess I’ll go?”

Nathaniel frowns, fingers curling around her elbow to keep her from moving further away.

“You can still stay. I’m not kicking you out.”

“Thanks for the rousing invitation,” she quips, “but I think I’ll head home.”

She shrugs out of his grip and sees herself to the door, leaving him looking resigned on the couch, his head falling wearily into his hands.

“And for what it’s worth,” she says quietly, turning back to him with her fingers on the door handle, “I never hated you. I kind of wanted to. But I just… couldn’t.” She pauses, dragging the toe of her sneaker along the floor. “I guess I’ll see you when you get back from LA.”

 

* * *

 

When Nathaniel gets back on Sunday afternoon, cheeks two days unshaven and a little tired from the drive he’s stopped in his tracks by the unexpected sight of Rebecca sitting waiting for him on his doorstep, looking more than a little morose. There’s an open, half-empty bottle of red wine dangling unceremoniously between her thumb and forefinger, the hint of a tell-tale stain at the edges of her mouth. He crosses the remaining distance to her and when she spots him she glances up at him, eyes wide but unfocused.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Waiting for you, obviously.”

“Are you drunk? You should not be drinking in the hallway. Other people live in this building.”

“Well the plan was to be drinking inside but you weren’t back yet so I had to improvise.”

“Am I missing something here? Did something happen at therapy? Are you okay?”

“Are we fighting? Because it kind of feels like we’re fighting but I’m not actually mad so I can’t really tell. Maybe it’s more of a passive aggressive thing, which I should be used to because that is just so Paula, you know, but you and I are still new so I’m not really sure what your style is yet and I thought maybe I should just check in with you to be sure.”

“Okay, get up. Get off the floor.”

He manages to unlock the door and steer her inside with minimal stumbling. Once she’s relatively stable perched on a breakfast stool and slumped against the kitchen counter with her wine bottle hugged pathetically to her chest he stands in front of her and frowns.

“We’re not fighting. At least as far as I know. There’s probably a few things we need to talk about – now including you day-drinking on my doorstep – but I’m not mad at you. Rebecca, what is going on?”

She throws her hands up at him.

“I’m a cheater. I’m a dirty cheater.”

He takes a deep breath, not exactly thrilled about the turn the conversation is taking.

“Oh-kay.”

“Not on you,” she clarifies, to his immediate relief because he’s not really ready to closely examine the jolt he felt in his chest at her proclamation. “Not yet anyway. I’ve never seen myself as a cheater but oh my god, I am. I’m a cheater. Every significant relationship I’ve had has involved infidelity. I skipped out on Greg with the taco guy on our first date before we were even properly together and then when we were I slept with Josh, whom I also kissed while he was still with Valencia. Josh supposedly gave me everything I’d ever wanted by proposing to me and I showed my appreciation by kissing _you_ in an elevator, and Robert – Robert was _married_. And I was calling _you_ untrustworthy? I am a _terrible_ person.”

She takes a swig from her bottle and he takes the wince that follows as an opportunity to pry it from her fingers and place it further up the bench, out of her reach.

“Okay, stop. You’re not a terrible person,” he says, shaking his head. “You sometimes have very poor impulse control, yes; but the first step is admitting you have a problem and besides, you know all this already. The workbooks you love so much, the therapy – that’s what they’re all for. Helping you alter your behaviours.” He pauses, working his jaw. “I don’t really think it’s necessary for us to start comparing our sexual histories, and I know this isn’t really something that warrants validation, but if it makes you feel any better, our track records are pretty much on par at this point.”

Her mouth scrunches up in a way that would be adorable if she didn’t look so pitiful, and Nathaniel’s heart twists at the genuine despair on her face.

“It’s just - what if I run into Josh Chan at the grocery store tomorrow and he smiles at me a certain way and bam, clean up aisle six because there’s a couple going at it in the canned goods section?”

Nathaniel lets out a long breath through his nose, not sure he actually wants to ask.

“Are you worried you still have feelings for Josh?”

It feels like it should be a loaded question, but it isn’t, not really. Not anymore.

She shakes her head emphatically.

“No. Josh was a mirage. A metaphor. An ideal. That bubble has well and truly burst.”

“Okay. Then what are you afraid of?”

“What if I can’t help it?” she asks miserably, eyes shining with unshed tears. “What if I’m just wired this way, and I’m just pre-destined to fuck all this up?”

“Then I’m sure we’ll fuck it up together. Go down in flames. Not literal flames though, I’d like to think you’ve at least moved on from that.” Rebecca frowns and hits him, but he catches her hand in his own before she can pull it back. “Can we just agree that neither of us are particularly great at this, but we’re still going to try?”

She slides her hand from his grasp to scrub despairingly at her face. When she speaks again to his relief her tone is more sulky than genuinely upset.

“I want to. I just hate this. I hate not being good at stuff. I’m a renowned over-achiever and I don’t do well with sucking at things.” She fiddles with her fingers for a moment before continuing. “The other night when we were talking I kind of felt like we had a breakthrough, but then you sort of shut down on me and I… didn’t know where to go from there. I know you need your own space to process stuff, I get it, I so get it. But in the interest of full disclosure I have trouble dealing with being closed off-from like that, and I start to spiral imagining all the horrible things you might be thinking about me, and all the mean ways you’re probably going to break up with me, and…” She trails off and shrugs.

“You know none of that is true, right?” he asks, forehead creased in concern.

She grabs his hands and squeezes them in her own, her lower lip trembling near imperceptibly.

“Objectively, yes. But that doesn’t always help.”

He sighs and pulls her into a hug, one of his hands settling over her hair at the nape of her neck to draw her into him. The breath she takes is shaky and he can feel her shuddering against his chest.

“Let’s make a deal, hmm? That if something I’m doing isn’t good for where your head’s at – you let me know. Because for the record, I’m probably going to do a lot of dumb stuff.”

“Yeah, you can’t help it. It’s your stupid boy penis,” she mumbles into his shirt. After a moment longer of pouting against him she pulls back and looks up at him, bleary eyed. “Can I have my wine back?’

“No, I’m cutting you off. You can have a glass of water. Or I could make you a kale and buckwheat smoothie,” he teases.

“Blegh,” she fake gags, flailing her hands at him in refusal. “Scratch that. I think I’m just going to take a nap.”

She trudges over to his bed, barely maintaining her balance as she awkwardly bends over to pull off her shoes. Once she’s free of her sneakers she flops unceremoniously forward, starfished face down on the covers as she claws her way up towards the pillows.

“Do you have a blanket?” she whines after a moment.

“You do realise you’re lying on a duvet, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m all comfy on top of it and I can’t be bothered moving right now.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I know what you’re like and yet I continue to ask the questions,” he says to himself more so than her.

To her delight he manages to produce a charcoal throw from one of his cupboards and tosses it in her direction. She shakes it out over herself and snuggles down before patting the space next to her enticingly.

“Care to join?”

“No thanks. Naps are for the elderly and weak. I prefer to stay productive and alert in my waking hours.”

“Mmm, your loss. If napping is wrong I don’t ever want to be right.”

He shakes his head and settles in on the couch with his laptop and tries not to be distracted by the intermittent sound of her gentle snores.

 

* * *

 

When she stirs a few hours later she’s surprised to find Nathaniel curled up beside her under the throw, his socks off and the top of his shirt unbuttoned but otherwise still dressed in the clothes he came home in, his breathing deep and even across her cheek. Her head hurts and she feels a little dehydrated but she smiles despite the discomfort and snuggles a little closer, edging forward to rub her nose against his exposed clavicle, inhaling his scent.

Apparently the action rouses him because he sighs and shifts, his arm sliding around her to pull her properly against him.

“Not a word,” he says, voice low and rough with sleep.

“I didn’t say anything,” she mumbles, letting her eyes drift closed again.

 

* * *

 

If two weeks is a really long time, the last day is by far the longest.

It doesn’t help that it happens to be one of the hottest days of the year and Rebecca spends the entirety of it feeling like she’s wearing too many clothes, like every nerve ending in her body is geared in high sensitivity to heat. She cycles through fanning herself dramatically with various objects from her desk until Paula shoots her a concerned look and asks if she’s menopausal.

It shouldn’t be such a big deal. To be fair she’s already tried to cheat at least twice by attempting to debate with Nathaniel the finer points of what exactly did and did not constitute intercourse (and she very nearly got away with convincing him on the hand stuff through sheer persistence and determination, but the man’s restraint whenever her therapy is concerned has proven to be weirdly superhuman). She gets that the very fact the exercise has been nigh unbearable for her only proves Dr Shin right but at the same she’s done what he asked – granted, the minute they’d stopped having sex they had started arguing but that in itself had led to lots of talking and all in all, she’s feeling pretty good about where they’re at.

She waits for him by his car and when she sees him coming, satchel slung over his shoulder and phone in his hand she drapes herself over the side of it in what she imagines is an enticing way but looks mostly ridiculous.

“Your place or mine?” she purrs sultrily when he reaches her, then lifts her head to add as an aside, “That’s a rhetorical question. We’re going to your apartment. I have a housemate.”

“Hey,” he greets, leaning down to give her a quick peck but finding his plans instantly derailed as she hijacks the kiss and all but climbs him in the middle of the parking lot. He pushes her back gently with his hands on her shoulders. “Woah. Easy, tiger. Where’s the fire?”

The look on her face as she opens her mouth tells him she’s about to say something obscene so he stops her with a finger on her lips and a tiny shake of his head.

She changes tack.

“Sorry, I guess I’m just looking forward to our romantic evening together.”

“Yeah, so about that,” Nathaniel begins, fishing for his keys. “I was thinking… we should just wait another day.”

“What?” she says dumbly, staring at him like he’s grown a second head.

“Well if we just jump each other as soon as the deadline is up, it’s like we didn’t learn anything. If the whole point was to have some self-control and work on having a relationship outside of sex, doesn’t immediately jumping back into it the very second it’s over negate the whole exercise?”

She closes her eyes and attempts to breathe through the tension that is invading her entire body because clearly the universe is testing her in the form of this moronic, masochistic man.

“Right,” she says eventually, forcing an encouraging smile, voice a little high pitched. “We’re both adults in control of our actions. We’ve gone two weeks. What’s another day?”

“Right,” he echoes, sliding into the car and shrugging like it’s the most obvious choice in the world.

Except she can’t fucking get to sleep.

Nathaniel’s lightly snoring behind her like he hasn’t got a care in the world but Rebecca is agonisingly restless, trying to force her mind to go blank but unable to ignore the persistent ache between her thighs. He moves, then; shifts in his sleep and as a consequence presses closer to her. She can’t help but bite back a moan and arch into him, stilling when his breath turns ragged against her neck, the hand curling over her hip to hold her in place confirming he’s awake.

“Screw this,” she breathes.

There’s a beat where neither of them moves but then she can’t tell which of them is grabbing at the other quicker as she twists onto her back and he rolls on top of her, pinning her to the mattress.

“Self-control is stupid,” she announces, neck arching and toes curling as he laves at her pulse point.

“Uh-huh,” he manages in agreement.

He fumbles for the drawer on the nightstand but she swats his hand away, knotting her fingers through his as she shakes her head.

“I wanna feel you,” she gasps, rolling her hips, the hand not entwined with his grasping desperately at his neck and he makes a guttural noise in the back of his throat in response to her words that reverberates right through her.

It’s hard and fast and messy but exactly the kind of near-instant gratification she was going for; when he makes to move off her she squeezes her knees at his sides to stop him, content to feel his weight on top of her a while longer. He obeys and presses further up onto his elbows instead, kissing her open-mouthed, a little sloppily.

“That was…”

“Out of control?” she suggests, chest still heaving.

He chuckles and thumbs the sweat-soaked curls plastered to her forehead.

“I was going to say intense. Maybe we should abstain more often.”

She makes a noise of disapproval and swipes half-heartedly at his back before the both of them dissolve into laughter.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, did you want to go somewhere tomorrow night?”

It’s a Sunday late afternoon and she’s sprawled out on his couch, her legs resting comfortably across his lap while he works and she reads in mostly companionable silence. Mostly because silence has never really been her forte; to his credit he only occasionally rolls his eyes and sets his computer aside to stare at her pointedly when she’s being particularly disruptive.

Nathaniel doesn’t even look up, this time – his fingers flying over the keys as he jabs out another email, distracting her with thoughts about the look of intense concentration on his face and the ways in which she could potentially entice him into directing it at her.

“What did you have in mind?” he responds eventually, presumably upon reaching the end of a sentence.

“I don’t know,” she says, trying to shrug casually as she skims his thigh with her toes. “Like somewhere fancy, where I can maybe wear a nice dress?”

“Sure,” he says easily. “What’s the occasion?”

Rebecca shifts apprehensively next to him on the couch. She hadn’t even noticed on purpose – Valencia had just happened to upload a bunch of photos from her party with the caption _these are only three months late, oops_ and the nail polish application emoji. Rebecca had made it through approximately twenty unflattering shots of she, Valencia and Heather with their faces squished ridiculously together before the realisation had hit her, and she’d spent the time since reluctantly debating whether to call attention to it.

“It might be stupid. I don’t know. But it’s kind of our three month anniversary?”

She cringes as she says it, almost as if she’s expecting him to roll his eyes at her and dismiss her for being overly sentimental. Instead he looks a little taken aback, and if she’s honest kind of panicked, and she immediately regrets saying anything.

“Oh,” he says. “Is that… is that a thing? I’m sorry if I’m supposed to have noticed; I’m kind of clueless about that stuff -”

“No,” she cuts him off, eyes wide. “It’s - it’s not a big deal at all. I just thought it was nice, in a sort of ‘yay, us’ kind of way, that’s all. That’s going from my birthday, by the way – I don’t know if technically that counts or we should take it from dinner, but my birthdate was just easier for obvious reasons. I’m not trying to make a weird big deal out of it or anything,” she says hurriedly. “I only really noticed by accident – I wasn’t like, counting down the days. I just thought it might be a nice excuse to do something.”

Nathaniel settles back into the couch, pensive, his hands coming to rest absently on top of her feet.

“Three months,” he repeats. “Wow. Really? I’ve put up with you for that long?”

She leans forward and smacks him on the chest with the back of her hand.

“Don’t be a dick,” she scowls. She pauses for a moment, considering, then asks, “Hey, do you think you could get into that fancy Italian place on Fairway? I know it’s basically impossible to get a reservation there but I’ve kind of technically been waiting three months. I was supposed to go for my thirtieth birthday, but some inconsiderate asshole had to go and plan me a stupid amazing surprise party instead so I never got to actually go.”

“Well, that inconsiderate asshole could probably pull a few strings,” he says with amusement.

Rebecca smiles happily in response and stretches, curling her toes in his lap.

She notices, not for the first time, how disgustingly domestic they’re being and takes secret pleasure in seeing him like this; trading in his suit and tie for a t-shirt and jeans and the way his unstyled hair flops ridiculously over his forehead when he moves, limbs casually entangled as they read side by side on the couch. It feels fantastically _normal._

“Then it’s a date,” she says.

 

* * *

 

(It’s a vast improvement on their first.)


	3. iii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was totally operating under the delusion that I could pump this fic out before anything got majorly jossed on the show because I was not expecting this stuff to be happening so freaking fast, but then 3.08 happened and threw me for a major loop. But I've finally managed to push past it all and get this monster of a chapter done and dusted so here's part three, fellas. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Nathaniel’s fridge has started to contain things other than green vegetables, and he’s not entirely sure how he feels about it.

The thing is though, it’s not just his fridge that’s changing. He’s started doing disgusting things like catching himself watching her sleeping; mapping out the constellation of freckles on her flushed post-coital cheeks and combing the tangles gently from her hair while she snores; skimming her shape and taking note of every swell, crease and curve of her soft and surprisingly supple body. There’s a part of him that might be obsessed with holding her; of having her curled into his side and pressed up against him because if he’s completely honest, he’s still kind of secretly scared about her almost dying. But if she’s breathing gently next to him, solid and shifting and warm, she’s here and she’s real and by some grand miracle he hasn’t lost her yet. 

They’ve spent enough evenings together now for him to know she does this thing most nights where she shrugs the blankets off in irritation, pushing them down to pool around her waist only to wake him up hours later when she starts burrowing into him, frowning sleepily, cold. He reaches down to pull them back up over her shoulders and she settles, satisfied, pout easing as she drifts back to sleep and he wonders how on earth she manages to regulate her body temperature when she sleeps alone. The thought is alarmingly possessive and protective and he stops himself – surely the woman has managed just fine for thirty years without him.

(Or has she? It seems like she hasn’t exactly spent much time on her own.)

Rebecca Bunch has stirred something deep within him, awakened something on a molecular level inside that’s been repressed and made dormant, lying inert below the surface until she fought her way into his head and spread through his veins like wildfire, leaving little but scorched earth in its wake with the tiny, hopeful promise of new growth.

The truth is, since her birthday when she kissed him and the dinner and the night that followed and he’s had her, actually _had_ her ever since, he hasn’t felt the need to continue to examine those changes particularly closely – the debilitating squeeze of longing has been pushed aside. She isn’t going anywhere, at least insofar as he can tell. Pining had been a distraction but he doesn’t question the contentment; doesn’t feel the need to be bewildered by the unidentifiable sensation that blossoms in his chest when she smiles at him that’s definitely more warmth than heat.

They mustn’t have moved much during the night for once because when she stirs beside him, pulling him from half-slumber, they’re still in roughly the same position they fell asleep in; almost nose to nose with Nathaniel’s arm draped loosely over her, breaths mingling in the space between them on the pillows. When she groans and stretches he mirrors the movement and blinks awake, eyes peeling open to find her greeting him with a tentative smile.

“Hey,” she says, softly.

“Hey.”

He could get used to this, he thinks with an alarming jolt.

(He kind of already has.)

* * *

She gives the bottle of pills Dr Shin prescribed her a contemplative shake before rolling it over in her hands, thumbing the cap and label. 

It’s true she hasn’t exactly had the world’s greatest relationship with drugs - between the stifling numbness that was her life in New York and consequent clogging of her garbage disposal and desperation driving her to take a pink pill off her psychiatrist’s bathroom floor to her mother’s Molotov cocktail attempt at mollifying her with milkshakes and the very problematic missteps that followed - but she gets it. Gets that brain chemistry is biology, just like the rest of it, and despite her hesitance at heading down that road again she _wants_ to be better and is determined to do whatever she can to try, taking tablets included.

“So I don’t know about you, but I am ready for a -”

She flinches at the sound of Nathaniel’s voice from the doorway and before she realises what she’s doing, she’s shoved the plastic bottle hastily beneath her leg. It’s too late, though, because he’s already seen it, and so now all she’s really succeeded in is looking guilty.

Nathaniel stares at her, frozen, his hands balled up at his sides and she thinks she can see the colour slowly fading from his face as he swallows, the reaction visceral. He looks like he’s going to be sick.

Rebecca panics.

“I wasn’t -”

“It’s fine,” he interrupts. “You don’t have to explain. Really. I’m just going to - going to, uh -” He clears his throat, pressing two fingers firmly into his forehead for a moment as he steps back. “I have some things I need to take care of, at the office, so I’m just going to head in early.”

“Nathaniel,” she pleads quietly, moisture already pricking in her eyes at the thought of him walking out but unable to find the words to try and persuade him not to. 

“I’ll, uh - I’ll see you at work.”

When she hears the click of the front door closing behind him she hurls the bottle across the room and collapses back onto the bed with a frustrated growl.

* * *

The thing is, they haven’t really spoken about her therapy that much.

He knows that she goes, of course, and that there’s occasionally homework; the whole two weeks without sex thing kind of involved him pretty directly and every so often there might be a particular problematic behaviour she’ll ask for his help in calling her out on, but it’s not like they’ve gotten into the nitty gritty of how it’s all been going. Partly because it’s just not the kind of confronting conversation they tend to have, and partly because she has no real idea of how it’s all going; she’s learning and she still fucks up, _a lot_ , but she gets that it’s an ongoing process that isn’t going to be reaching an immediate conclusion any time soon. 

So she hasn’t told him that many details - hasn’t exactly explained her specific processes for focusing on being mindful and present, hasn’t really mentioned the medication that isn’t the most important part of her treatment but still helps keep the persistent pull of impulse at bay. It just never seemed… necessary. His reaction had been somewhat troublesome and she feels vindicated in her reluctance to share despite having an inkling of precisely the kind of thoughts that could have been running through his head in that moment.

She’s not long out of a solemn and contemplative shower when she’s startled by an aggressive knock at the door. Still fumbling with the last of her buttons on her shirt she swings it open, expecting to find Nathaniel but instead surveying the person in front of her with confusion.

“Paula,” she says, puzzled. “What are you doing here?”

Her friend brushes past her into the house, glancing purposefully around.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

“What? I’m fine. I don’t -”

“Nathaniel called me,” Paula says, and Rebecca tenses. “I could barely make out what he was saying, he was that worked up. The man should not be driving right now.”

“What did he say?” Rebecca asks suspiciously.

“That he had to leave but he shouldn’t have, and that I needed to come check that you’re okay. What the hell is going on? Do I need to hunt him down? Who’s at fault here? It’s him, right? I mean, I’m on your side either way but it’s good to know what I’m working with before I go in to bat for you. Did you two have a fight?”

Rebecca sighs and shuts the door.

“No. Not exactly.” Paula is pinning her down with a piercing stare, eyebrows raised impatiently. She takes the hint and elaborates with an exasperated shrug. “He may have walked in on me staring a little too intently at a bottle of meds this morning, and he startled me, and I panicked and I hid them but he saw and I think I gave him the wrong idea because he freaked out, Paula. He freaked the fuck out. I watched every last drop of blood drain from his face in painful slow motion. And apparently he’s now pulled over on the side of the road somewhere having a panic attack while he waits for you to come check on his suicidal girlfriend.”

“God,” is all Paula can say as she drops her purse on the kitchen counter. “That man is kind of a mess, huh? Do you want to call him or should I?”

Rebecca shakes her head, conflicted.

“Can you just… could you just text him, and tell him I’m fine and he has nothing to worry about? Because I’m feeling a little flummoxed right now and I can’t deal with… whatever it is he’s got going on.”

“Rebecca,” Paula prods cautiously, tone gentle.

“Mm?”

“Does Nathaniel have anything to worry about?”

She’s not stupid. She hears the real question she’s being asked - _do I have anything to worry about?_

“No,” she says firmly, meeting Paula’s eyes and speaking with as much sincerity as she can muster. “I’m not… in that place. I promise.” She looks absently at the clock. “We should go to work.”

Paula gives her a dismissive wave and steers her over to the couch.

“It sounds like our boss is a little distracted right now so you know what? I think we’ll be fine.”

Rebecca lets out a shaky huff of laughter at that before amusement gives rise to panic, the anxiety she’s been pushing back at since she first picked up the prescription bottle forcing its way back to the forefront of her mind.

“Oh god, Paula, I’ve ruined this like I ruin everything,” she says, stomach clenching horribly. “We were happy, and ignorant, but it was just pretending, right? I had him lulled into this false sense of security but now he’s realised I’m still broken and too much work.”

“Hey,” Paula says sharply. “You are not broken. So don’t ever let me hear you say that again, you understand? And anybody that thinks you are too much work does not deserve you. Not that I believe he thinks that at all. Cookie - have you spoken to him about this? Let him know where your head’s at?”

“No,” she says,“because he left! He just left, like everyone always leaves when they realise how weird I am, and how much drama I have in my life, and -”

“Okay,” Paula interrupts, effectively shutting her spiral down. “Sweetie, Nathaniel hasn’t left. I mean, he momentarily exited the building - I get that - but he hasn’t abandoned you. He just had an unexpectedly bad reaction to something you have to admit could have come off as kind of scary. But trust me, honey - the man that called me twenty minutes ago is not going anywhere. So you need to take a deep breath and you need to calm down. Come on, we’ll talk about this in the car. I’ll drive you today.”

Paula’s using her no-nonsense mom voice and it’s disturbingly effective; Rebecca takes a deep breath and begrudgingly does what she’s told.

* * *

She spends the whole day avoiding him until he corners her in the break room while she’s searching absently for an afternoon snack. He still doesn’t look particularly good; the pallor of his face isn’t quite right and he looks like he’s spent the entire day sweating. She stubbornly keeps herself from raising her eyebrows in concern.

They’re having a somewhat terse exchange of pleasantries when Darryl sidles up to stand between them, hovering awkwardly as if he’s still deciding what to say. Nathaniel glares at him expectantly.

“Darryl,” Rebecca acknowledges, a hint of impatience in her tone to suggest she’s kind of busy.

“Rebecca, is this man bothering you?” 

She’s pretty sure the taken aback look on Nathaniel’s face is perfectly mirrored on her own.

Darryl’s forcing an expression that Rebecca thinks is supposed to be intimidating but is closer to conveying confusion and constipation; she frowns and sets her coffee cup down on the counter.

“Uh, Darryl - this man is Nathaniel. Co-owner of the firm. I’m reasonably confident the two of you have met at some point.”

Darryl lowers his voice and speaks to her as an aside.

“I can’t help but notice there’s been some uncomfortable tension between the two of you today, and I thought it was my duty as both your boss and friend to make sure that your relationship going south wasn’t leading to any upsetting situations or harassment in the workplace -”

“Darryl?” Nathaniel interrupts, raising a hand to silence his spiel. 

Darryl fidgets before straightening his shoulders and rolling his head back in Nathaniel’s direction.

“Yes?”

“You need to walk away.”

Rebecca gives a reassuring and appreciative nod and Darryl begrudgingly takes the hint and slinks away, not without casting several furtive glances back at them on his way to his office.

“He means well,” she says.

“He’s an idiot,” Nathaniel counters, “but he’s an idiot that cares about you. I’m not going to fault him for that.”

She returns to stirring her coffee, making a point of not replying or meeting his gaze.

“Look, Rebecca - we obviously need to talk. Now is not the time or place, but over dinner? Tonight?”

“I’ll be at home,” she says, doing her best to sound unaffected. “If you wanted to come over, I’d be there.”

She can tell from the way he swallows awkwardly that this was not the scenario he’d been hoping for; returning to the scene of the morning’s badly misinterpreted crime seems to be the last thing he’d like to be doing but his obvious reluctance only strengthens her resolve and she jaunts her chin up at him, staying strong.

“Sure,” he says hesitantly. “How’s seven? I’ll bring food.”

When he turns up at her house with Chinese takeout they eat at the table in uncomfortable silence, Nathaniel touching even less of his meal than usual.

“So if you’re going to break up with me, I’d really prefer if you just got it over and done with,” she says eventually, dropping her cutlery with a clank.

He lowers his own fork and stares at her in bewilderment.

“What?”

“I mean it’s fine. I get it. Why would you even want to be with me, right? You know I’m crazy. Like, certified.”

“What is happening right now?” he asks, confusion steadily mounting. “Where is this coming from?”

He’s starting to panic, now - because he thought this was heading in one direction but now it’s ploughing relentlessly ahead in another, and Rebecca has always kind of been like a runaway train with no brakes and he’s always kind of just been along for the ride, any semblance of control on his behalf a carefully maintained ruse - and he wishes he could get her to stop ambushing him like this because when he gets caught off-guard he tends to get defensive, and when he gets defensive he gets prickly and petty and it rarely does anything to improve the situation that he can tell.

“Uh, I don’t know - maybe from you realising that I’m damaged and broken and I haven’t gotten magically better yet and you don’t want to have to deal with that stuff anymore.”

“Are you - are you talking about this morning? Because that is not what that was. Not at all. Rebecca -”

“Then what the hell was it, huh? Because it sure felt like you got one glimpse of the messy side of me and couldn’t get out the door fast enough!”

“Because you _terrify_ me,” he says loudly, smacking his hand down on the table before he realises what he’s saying or doing.

Rebecca recoils at the sound of his palm connecting with the wood and he swallows guiltily. There’s a heavy beat, and sweat prickles hotly along the back of his neck.

After a moment she throws her hands up at him in an accusing shrug, and frustration curls in his clenching fingertips as he realises she’s just gotten an answer she’s almost been daring him to give all along.

“So you should probably go,” she says, flatly, blinking down at her hands. “I mean, since being around me is so terrifying.”

“That’s not fair,” he says, voice low. “Rebecca, that’s not what I meant. You don’t get to decide what I meant.”

But it’s too late, because they’re both up out of their chairs but she’s pushing past him, eyes wide and full to the brim with tears, manic energy humming along every inch of her tiny frame and making her fierce, even in her misery.

He flinches when she slams and locks the bathroom door behind her.

* * *

He can feel her shifting through the mattress, tossing and turning, restless, and rolls over automatically to reach for her only to come face to face with her stuffed alligator, creating an accusing divide down the centre between them. It definitely wouldn’t be the first night he’s spent pressed up against it, and he considers taking the hint and going back to sleep but he can still hear Rebecca stirring fitfully beyond and can’t quite bring himself to ignore her. He blinks and frowns at her juvenile attempt at a blockade and shoves it further down the bed to find her lying on her side, bleary eyed but awake, staring at him.

“Hey,” she says croakily, her voice rough with sleep, “you moved my wall.”

“Your wall was built by a child. It’s kind of a toothless tiger. Or alligator, as it were.”

She lets out a breath through her nose before groaning and rolling away, slipping out of the bed. She pads disoriented from the room and he isn’t sure how long passes without her returning before he can’t help but slide back towards sleep, eyelids papery and rough. 

He startles and jerks back awake at the jab of her icy toes against his shins, taken aback to find her watching him again only from much, much closer; the gator has been discarded entirely and Rebecca is lying alongside him in its place. He notices her eyes are red and her face is blotchy, like she’s been crying, and he frowns and strokes her hair behind her ear.

“What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head at him.

After a moment she rolls towards him and twists over so her back is pressed against him, and he picks up on the intimation and settles his arm around her waist.

“You stayed,” she says quietly.

“Hmm?”

“When I yelled at you earlier, and locked myself in the bathroom. I assumed you would have just left. I’m sure you have better things to do than hang around and get shouted at.”

“Well, you’d be surprised,” he quips, absently tracing patterns on her stomach with the pad of his middle finger.

She reaches back behind her to touch her hand to the side of his face, burying her fingers briefly in his hair.

“Thank you for being so gentle with me.”

He isn’t entirely sure how to respond to that so he sleepily tightens his hold around her middle and nuzzles into her neck. He presses a tentative kiss below her ear and she twitches at the touch.

“I’m sorry about what I said earlier,” he says after a moment. “And for… not staying, this morning.”

There’s a beat where she goes still and silent in his arms before she pulls away from him again, Nathaniel releasing her with reluctance. He’s briefly worried she’s about to flee to the bathroom for the third time tonight but instead she draws herself up to lean against the headboard, still kind of curled defensively in on herself, knees angled towards him.

He pushes himself up onto an elbow.

“I didn’t mean I was afraid of you,” he implores. “Although for the record you can be very intimidating. Rebecca, I’m terrified because I have no idea what I’m doing here. I don’t usually do feelings. I never really know what they are, or what to do with them, or how to make them stop. They weren’t really a big part of my upbringing. And when I heard about what happened on that plane, it was awful, but the truth is it was more than just that because when you went back to New York I felt like couldn’t breathe anymore.” He gestures desperately at his chest before pinching his fingers along his forehead. “You are… very confusing. You confuse me. You always have.”

“I’m sorry,” she says eventually, and now she’s further away from him it’s harder to tell in the dark but he suspects from the faint glint her eyes are welling up again. “I’m sorry for being such a mess.”

He shakes his head and raises himself up a little more so he can reach for her and pull her into him; she caves immediately, crumpling as soon as his timid palm skims her bare arm.

“Hey – ssh,” he mollifies, hand in her hair. He’s almost fresh out of heartfelt confessions for the evening so he switches tack in an attempt to lighten the mood instead. “Lucky for you, you’re a hot mess,” he says, and to his relief Rebecca snorts into his neck at the bad joke.

She tugs his arm around her, demanding to be held.

“You know, for someone who doesn’t do feelings, you’re kind of getting pretty good at this,” she says.

(It doesn’t really feel like it, but he’ll take the encouragement nonetheless.)

“Nathaniel, what you saw… I wasn’t thinking about doing anything stupid, I swear. I mean, there was a little inevitable morbid reflection on the last time I did do that but that’s all. That’s not why I hid them.”

She feels him tense beside her and while he doesn’t verbally prod her for an explanation the plea is written plainly all over his face, even in the low light of her room. She lets out a deep breath before going on.

“You and me, this thing we’re doing - somehow, for reasons beyond my comprehension, it’s kind of working, right? I’ve never had a real, stable, long-term relationship in my life. I feel… normal, with you. But those pills, they just remind me that I’m not. They remind me of being back in New York and feeling numb to my entire life, and then being on that plane and not being able want anything else other than numbness because in that moment it seemed like the only alternative was unbearable pain. So of course I didn’t want them to be a part of - of all this.”

“Rebecca, I told you that I’m here for you,” he says, thickly. “I meant all of you.”

“I know that,” she says, desperate for him to understand. “I know that and I heard the words and I believe them, honestly, I do. It’s just… hard. I’ve been keeping those parts of myself hidden for so long.”

He fists his hand in the blankets behind her, using them to tug her into him. He looks conflicted, like he’s working himself up to saying something, so she searches his face and waits.

“When I walked in on you this morning, I felt…” He flounders for the words. “I felt like I was going to be sick, and a lot of it was thinking about… you know, you - but that wasn’t the only reason. I’ve…” The shaky breath he lets out starts to make her nervous. “I’ve never told anyone this before.”

She can both feel and hear how he’s having to fight for every breath and her hand comes up to graze the side of his face gently with her knuckles, comforting him and gently encouraging him to carry on.

“When I was ten, my mother, she…” He clears his throat. “I found her on the floor of her bedroom. With a bottle of sleeping pills.”

Rebecca lets out a breath at that, because _oh._

“Oh god,” she says. “Nathaniel, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”

“And we didn’t really talk about it. Like, at all. My mom, she went away for awhile and then she came back and my parents just acted like it never happened. So I moved on and I never really thought about it until… well,” he finishes awkwardly, tilting his head away from her in embarrassment. “Until recently.”

She feels a sharp, almost painful surge of protectiveness at his admission, a lot of things suddenly making too much sense, and she wriggles closer, desperate to reach inside him and console that lost little ten year old boy. 

Though he tolerates her occasional ambush Nathaniel isn’t particularly into PDA but behind closed doors he’s endearingly tactile; she’s always figured his upbringing must have left him a little starved for human contact because he draws obvious guileless contentment from having her close. She never would have guessed it upon first meeting him – though now she thinks maybe it shouldn’t have come as surprise, not really – but the man is decidedly a snuggler, and while she’s always been a fan of basking in a good afterglow there’s been a startling undercurrent of intimacy to the way he pulls her body flush against his and weaves his fingers through her hair, even on the edge of sleep.

She plays to those suspicions now, flattening herself against him and burying her face in his neck, skin pressed against every inch of available skin. She noses the curve of his throat whilst her left hand rubs soothingly at his nape, and after a few seconds of remaining taught with tension he sighs and relaxes somewhat, his arm tightening around her waist to hold her firmly in place.

“I went to see her, when you were in the hospital,” he continues eventually, his voice quiet and low in her ear. “And we talked about what happened, for the first time since. It… felt like it helped. But this morning…”

“I get it,” she says, lifting her head to look at him. “And I’m sorry for scaring you like that. And I’m sorry that your childhood was shitty, because I get that too. Boy, do I get that.”

Nathaniel shakes his head minutely, tongue tracing the front of his teeth. He refuses to meet her eyes when he speaks.

“I just… I don’t want to lose you.”

The way his voice cracks slightly when he says it makes her chest feel suddenly too tight and she has to pull back a little, her emotions careening dangerously towards the kind of fragile and raw she’s been trying to avoid.

“Oy vey,” she jokes with a sniff, downplaying his words. “The baggage between the two of us, huh? I’m gonna need a bigger closet.”

He responds with a self deprecating smile that slips from his mouth as she studies his face, her gaze shifting to his lips and then she’s kissing him, sliding over him, enveloping him, everywhere.

“Rebecca,” he says, too tenderly, chasing her as she settles over his hips and she shushes him and pushes him back down, both hands splayed on his chest. 

“Ssh. Just let me make you feel good,” she urges, purposeful now, and for the most part the words stop there.

* * *

“So here’s the thing,” she announces after dinner one night, a non sequitur, “I already signed your contract, but that was a you-thing, not a me-thing. So here’s my me-thing: I’m going to change my Facebook relationship status.” He winces a little at that, obviously not sold on the idea but she holds up a hand for him to wait. “Please just hear me out. This has always been a really big deal for me, in the past – making something official in the public sphere and ramming down the throats of everyone I know how super cute and perfect my life is. Kind of like I needed that validation of people liking and commenting and re-affirming my delusional romantic narrative. But, I don’t need that anymore. And Heather showed me how you can, like, edit your settings so you can change your relationship status without it showing up in everyone’s feed, which thankfully saved me a sliver of humiliation after my whole wedding fiasco, but that’s not important now. And you know what – I’m not even going to link it to yours. You can do whatever you want, and keep it hidden, or whatever. What I’m saying is, this is just for me. And whoever happens to see it, if they go looking. But mostly me.”

He looks up at her almost quizzically, but an entertained smile spreads over his face.

“Put a lot of thought into this, huh?”

“Yup. This is my anti-big romantic gesture. Like, the anti-boom box over my head outside your bedroom window, because let’s be honest, what’s regaled as the pinnacle of romantic comedies was kind of stalkery and gross and yeah, maybe I could identify with that a little, but this is the complete opposite of that.” She makes a show of pointedly jabbing the save changes button before flashing the screen at him, then lifting her arms to hold her phone in both hands over her head, quirking an eyebrow. “See? I can do low-key commitment. And trust me, my therapist is going to love this. I’m totally getting a sticker.” She eyes him for a moment, acting blasé. “Seriously, though - do you think you’ll ever change yours? I mean it doesn’t matter either way, I’m just asking for a friend.”

“So I’m all for your newfound quiet confidence in the subtle nuances of your social media profiles, believe me,” he begins seriously, ignoring her last comment,“but I thought I’d mark the occasion with something a little more tangible.”

“The, uh… the occasion?” she asks, not meeting his eyes.

“Our six month anniversary,” he says casually. “You know - going from your party, not the dinner, because your birthdate makes it easier. For obvious reasons.”

A surprised but delighted smile blooms on her face and he can’t help but return it as he pulls out a black velvet jewellery box and offers it to her, opening the lid.

The necklace is simple but elegant and looks ridiculously expensive but she’s pretty sure it could have looked like just about anything at this point and she’d be equally enamoured because aside from being proposed to with a pawn-shop family heirloom she’s not entirely sure anyone’s ever actually given her jewellery before. 

“Do you, uh… is this okay?” he asks, looking suddenly adorably self-conscious. “I can swap it for something else if you don’t like it.”

“Nathaniel, it’s beautiful,” she insists, sweeping her hair up off her neck and twisting her back towards him, indicating that he should put it on her.

He obliges, his fingers electric where they brush against her nape and once he’s done fastening the clasp he skims them down across her collarbone towards the pendant, positioning it perfectly in the centre of her sternum.

* * *

“Rebecca, you’re allowed to put whatever you like on your Facebook,” Dr Shin says. “I’m not here to censor you. But don’t you think the fact that you’ve spent the last twenty minutes justifying it to me suggests it was a little more meaningful to you than you’re making out? Not that I’m not glad we’re talking about this, because the lens through which you view your relationships is very important.”

“Oh, don’t psychoanalyse me,” she snipes. Off his raised eyebrows she rolls her eyes and concedes begrudgingly, “Fine. I guess it’s technically your job, or whatever.”

It’s just - maybe she’s a tiny bit bitter about not getting that sticker. 

* * *

“Good morning,” Nathaniel greets, coming up behind her as she’s closing the fridge, arm winding around her waist as he rests his chin atop her shoulder.

She’s risen before him for once, already showered and dressed before he emerged from the bedroom in his boxer shorts, hair adorably sleep-tousled. There’s something enticing about being around him like this, fully clothed and put together while he’s exposed and on display that’s deliciously vulnerable, dull heat pooling low in her stomach as she twists in his arms to face him, chewing her lip and raking her gaze over him.

She’s wearing the necklace he gave her and when he notices he thumbs the pendant, pleased.

“Mm, good morning,” she agrees, pressing up on to her tip toes to kiss him, hands fisting in the un-styled fluffy crest of hair along the very top of his head.

He makes a tiny noise of surprise at the unexpected enthusiasm with which she kisses him, escalating ardently as she presses herself against him. When the kiss continues to remain heated he picks her up and walks her backwards towards the kitchen counter, her legs winding automatically around his waist. Her nails dig into his back as he latches on to a particularly sensitive spot on her neck.

“Oh god,” she pants. “We really shouldn’t get into this right now because I’m all dressed and ready to go and I’m going to be late meeting Paula for breakfast. But we could probably do, like, some super quick hand stuff if you promise not to make a mess.”

Nathaniel pulls back with a shaky huff of amusement.

“Quick and clean? Interesting choice of dirty talk.”

“Funny, I’m not coming up against any complaints,” she says with a cocked eyebrow as she reaches for the front of his shorts.

“Could you guys, like, possibly keep all countertop activities to a PG rating, max, because this kitchen is kind of a communal space,” Heather drawls as she walks out with her hands over eyes.

Rebecca’s eyes widen and she kicks Nathaniel away from her in alarm, causing him to let out a surprised and pained yelp. He winces and adjusts himself, holding a hand to his ribs.

“Oh my god, Heather – what are you doing here?” Rebecca asks in mortified confusion, jumping down and smoothing out her dress. “You’re supposed to be in Sacramento until tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I got back early. I came in last night but you probably didn’t hear me because you were being super loud. So, congrats on the coitus. Kudos to Harvey Specter over here - you were obviously doing something right. I guess I should be thankful you managed to confine that to your room.”

“Weeeell, a few hours earlier and – it’s not important,” Rebecca corrects off Nathaniel clearing his throat. “How was your family trip?”

“Soul destroying. I hated pretty much everybody there, so. Is it safe for me look for my cereal yet?”

“Dude,” Rebecca says, jerking her chin up at Nathaniel. “Put on some pants. I have a housemate. Be respectful.”

He scoffs at her in disbelief before skulking off to the bedroom to get dressed.

“Heather, I am so sorry. You can make out with Hector in front of me whenever you want and I will not say a word.”

“It’s fine. I kind of adjusted to his continued inappropriate presence when you went back to New York and he insisted on camping out here waiting for you to come home. I did take pity on him for a while and tried to feed him – you know, like a stray dog – but he doesn’t eat anything that contains, like, ingredients.”

“Yeah, he’s kind of low maintenance that way.”

As if on cue Nathaniel emerges from her room cool, calm and for the most part fully clothed, carrying his shoes. 

“So I should probably go. And so should you, actually, or you’re going to be late for breakfast.”

“Right! Paula. Damn it. Okay, so good talk, sorry about the indecent exposure – we’ll try and keep that to a minimum from now on. We’re gonna scoot – so I’ll see you later?”

“I’ll be here,” Heather agrees, sitting down at the bench with her Frosted Flakes. “Eating from this probably unsanitary surface. Yay me.”

* * *

“My profoundest apologies, sir - but we’re unable to hold a table for longer than twenty minutes when we’re this busy. The restaurant is booked solid for the evening.”

Nathaniel’s irritation is palpable, and Rebecca glances guiltily away.

The fact is they probably would have been on time if she hadn’t taken so long getting ready, even longer given the detour she’d taken to getting dressed that may or may not have involved ambushing him in the shower - not that he’d been complaining much at the time.

“Unbelievable,” he fumes.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Rebecca says, running her fingers down his arm. “We were late. It happens. We’ll go somewhere else. It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal? Are you kidding me? We just drove an hour in traffic for a reservation I made weeks ago.” He turns back to the maitre d’, pulling out his credit card. “Have you ever seen one of these before? Do you know what the limit is on this? _It doesn’t have one._ Also, this isn’t even that great of a restaurant - how are you overbooked on a Tuesday night? That doesn’t make sense. Do you know who I am? Who we are? We could have this place shut down by tomorrow if we wanted to. I could have you fired.”

“Sir -”

“Woah, okay, stop,” she says, placing a firm hand on Nathaniel’s chest. “You can’t talk to him like that. You get that, right? That’s not a way that you can talk to people to get them to do things.” She pushes away from him, leaning over the desk and pressing her palm against the countertop in apology. “Please ignore my boyfriend, he’s an entitled white cisgender male that’s still learning the world doesn’t revolve around him and his socio-economic bracket. Also his father never hugged him as a child – he’s kind of a work in progress.”

“Hey, lady - how about you and Bruce Wayne here hurry it up and step aside. Some of us poorer folk still have the decency to turn up to things on time.”

“Okay, so first of all - that was equally rude and uncalled for,” Rebecca says, turning aghast to the burly man standing behind her. “Secondly, I struggle with money like the best of them, so I identify with your plight and you do have somewhat of a valid point. But your impatience isn’t helping, so I politely request that you stay out of it.”

“Who said I was trying to help, bitch? Why don’t you get your sugar daddy Warbucks here to put you back on your leash and the two of you keep on walking?”

“Okay, so again I feel the need to correct you on -”

“Hey, you need to back off,” Nathaniel interjects suddenly, stepping closer to the large and overly aggressive man, rolling his shoulders back and sticking his chest out in a way that makes Rebecca both raise and furrow her eyebrows at the blatant posturing. “Don’t talk to her like that.”

“Oh, Nathaniel, honey, I really don’t think -”

“This woman went to Harvard and Yale – what did you do, flunk out of community college on a good day?”

The poor guy barely sees the fist coming before it connects heavily with his face.

* * *

Rebecca presses her hands together, prayer-like, and skims the edge of her joined index fingers down her lips in thought.

“That was like watching an impeccably groomed domesticated cat pick a fight with a mountain lion,” she says eventually, biting her lip and patting his knee pityingly. “Have you ever been in a punch-up in your life, or have you just watched West Side Story too many times?”

“Hey, I did not bring a knife to a fist fight,” he retorts, pressing the ice pack harder against the side of his face. He barely brought his fists. “And no. I haven’t. I managed to make it through school without escalating anything past a well-timed locker-shove.”

“Mmm, well maybe you should stick to using your words. I hate to kick a man while he’s down but I feel like it’s my duty as a self-respecting female to tell you that your little display of testosterone was gross and embarrassing for all involved. In the future if you’re going to go all caveman on me maybe you should pick a slightly less formidable opponent to be completely ineffectual against in hand-to-hand combat.”

“Thanks for the feedback and unconditional sympathy,” he says dryly.

She pries the compress away from his face to inspect the swelling, brushing her thumb across it and down towards the split in his lip, smiling apologetically when he can’t hide the wince.

“Unfortunately for me I think you’ll live to fight for my honour another day.”

He reapplies the ice and leans back into the couch with a groan. She excuses herself to go change.

When she emerges from the shower fifteen minutes later he’s traded in the compress for his computer, the glow of the screen illuminating the angry marks marring the side of his face. 

She drapes herself seductively in the doorway and clears her throat expectantly.

He looks her up and down for a moment, frowning as he recognises the grey wolf hide she’s wrapped herself in from the space in front of the drawers tucked into the entryway of his bathroom.

“I’m sorry - but you’re wearing something off my floor. I’m confused. Is this supposed to be arousing?”

“Oh, this old thing? Just some big scary animal that my heavy-browed mate massacred to satisfy his baser primal urges while also protecting me and providing me with shelter,” she explains breathily. Returning to her normal voice as an aside she clarifies to a baffled nod, “This is fake, right? Because I’m totally anti-fur. Okay, cool.”

Nathaniel closes his laptop and places it next to him on the sofa.

“Again, still kind of at a point of diminishing returns with the rug thing…”

“Yeah, let me remedy that for you.” She’s doing the voice again. “Better?” 

She steps forward and drops the faux pelt to the ground so that she’s standing in front of him completely naked, which to her credit catches him off-guard because he was definitely expecting another layer of lingerie, at least, which in retrospect was a rookie error because he should know well enough by now that Rebecca’s particular brand of seduction is generally equal parts sexiness and confusion. His eyebrows climb his forehead and he swallows audibly.

She raises an eyebrow at him in challenge.

“Well? Aren’t you going to throw me over your shoulder and carry me off to your bed like the Neanderthal you so desperately want to be?”

“Don’t you think I’ve suffered enough hits to my masculinity tonight?” he asks when he finally rediscovers his voice.

“Why do you think I’m letting you have this one, you big oaf?”

He huffs at her and obliges, slinging her up by her waist as she lets out a shriek and kicks her legs in feigned protest.

“I must demand you unhand me at once, you uncivilised fiend,” she hollers in an exaggerated Southern accent.

“Are you switching bits? That voice makes no sense.”

“I’m a cultured cavewoman ahead of her time. Just go with it.”

He shakes his head and tosses her reasonably gently on the bed, crawling over her, cat-like, and when she kisses him she laughs into his mouth and tries not to push too hard against his bruises.

* * *

“Well, that was duller than a deposition,” Rebecca announces, tossing aside Audra Levine’s annual Yom Kippur letter with gusto. “I’m not sure why my mom even bothers sending me this stuff.”

“And yet - you still read it,” Nathaniel notes dryly without looking up from his computer.

“Yeah, not reading it isn’t really an option for me. I’m bound to get quizzed on it later when my mom inevitably calls to criticise my life choices and check if anybody’s taken an interest in my unclaimed dowry yet.” She rubs her bare feet together, allowing her gaze to slide over Nathaniel in his button-down, hair perfectly coiffed as he reviews his case notes. She pulls a face and makes a quiet noise of disgust. “Eugh. It just occurred to me that you’re exactly the kind of person my mom would be over the moon about me dating.” She stops, eyes widening. “Wait.”

He glances up at her.

“What?”

Rebecca pulls herself upright, tucking her knees under her body and slinging an excited hand over to grasp his arm.

“ _You’re exactly the kind of person my mom would be over the moon about me dating_. I mean, the concept of that is all kinds of repulsive to me and unfortunately for you a massive turn off, so it’s something that I’m definitely going to have to take a mo’ to come to terms with, but I’ve just realised – I can go back to New York now.”

He shakes his head minutely to indicate he has no idea what the hell she’s talking about.

“My mom’s been begging me to come visit for months so she can check up on me, and I keep warding her off because honestly her withholding judgmental nature is one of my biggest triggers and I really haven’t felt like crossing that particular bridge yet. But if I take you, it’s not about me anymore, and she’ll be all confused but impressed and it’ll kind of seem like I have my life together and basically what I’m saying is I really need you to come to New York with me and meet my family, and be perfect, and make everyone back home think my life here is perfect.”

“Rebecca…”

“No, come on, I even have the perfect event,” she insists, picking up the discarded letter and tapping her fingers against the page. “My lifelong frenemy Audra Levine is hosting a fundraiser. It won’t be weird for you at all; you can just pretend it’s a work mixer. You will have to meet and converse with several people that I know including my mom but it’s not a big weird family thing like Christmas or Thanksgiving so you can play it totally cool.”

She chews her lip and insinuates her body behind his on the couch so she can slide her hands up to massage his neck in what she hopes is a convincing way. After grunting and sliding forward so that her knees aren’t jutting awkwardly into his spine he begrudgingly rolls his shoulders and leans back into her touch.

“Pleeeease?” she whines in his ear, eliciting a wince and an eye-roll from him at the baby voice.

“My complete inability to say no to you is starting to become a problem,” he grumbles.

“Not for me!”

Rebecca loops her arms all the way around his neck to drape down over the front of his body, pressing a triumphant kiss to the side of his face and smirking because she knows she’s already won.

* *

“Ugh, my mom is going to love you,” she assures him distractedly, her eyes drinking in the lush burgundy interior of the Plimpton jet with approbation. “Like, I’m already repulsed in advance for how amazing she’s going to think you are.”

Nathaniel trails behind her as she sidesteps the table, fingers brushing the champagne bottle already chilling in the ice bucket as she sidles through, bypassing the leather recliners and making a beeline for the suede sofa visible between the parted curtains at the back of the plane. She can’t help but think guiltily of the last time he offered up its services to her and swallows, wondering how differently things would have unfolded - if at all - if he’d been able to successfully sweep her off to Rome. She interprets his uncomfortable silence as an indication he’s considering the same and barrels on, desperate to keep the mood light.

“She’ll be all over you, because you’re rich and you’re successful and you look like you could model for GQ magazine. Probably the only thing you don’t have going for you is that you’re not Jewish, but she married an Irish Catholic and honestly her opinion of you is very least of my fears right now. See, this is what will happen. She’ll say a whole bunch of offensive and embarrassing stuff and I will turn into a very shrill and horrifying sea witch, because that’s what she does to me, she unlocks my inner banshee. You’ll catch a chilling vision of my future thirty odd years from now and probably never want to have sex with me ever again. I’ll eventually return to my human state, thoroughly mortified both by my mother’s behaviour and my own response to it, and then we’ll go back to our lives and pretend this whole traumatic night never happened.”

“Would it do me any favours to point out that this whole trip was entirely your idea?”

“Not remotely so honestly don’t even start.”

“Figured as much.”

He pours her a glass of champagne and she knocks it obligingly against his with a grin before taking an exaggerated sip.

“This is so cool. I feel like a Kennedy right now.”

Nathaniel laughs, easing down next to her and stretching his arm out along the back of the couch, behind her head, absently thumbing a lock of her hair.

Rebecca takes another gulp of her drink - with a little less sophistication, this time - and jumps back to her original train of thought.

“Also fair warning she’s probably going to mention her vagina at some stage – it’s kind of like a drinking game for everyone playing along at home only it’s not fun, just humiliating. My mother has a disturbingly active sex life and she kind of likes talking about it, a lot. Like honestly she’d put her vagina on Yelp if she could because she really values feedback. So yeah, I think that’s everything.”

“That was probably way more information than I needed,” he winces around the rim of his glass.

“You say that now but you’ll thank me later when you narrowly avoid choking on your drink. Braver men than you have perished from shock in the wake of Naomi Bunch.”

The jet hums to life around them, and Nathaniel shifts a little closer to her on the couch.

“I was thinking maybe we could save all this talk about your mom for when we actually get to New York,” he murmurs, eyes sliding distractedly down from her eyes to her mouth.

“Oh? Well what are we going to do for the next five hours then?” she counters, leaning in to mirror him, voice low and soft with feigned innocence.

“I may have a few ideas.”

She abandons the champagne flute with a hasty clink when his palm skims up her side to tug her closer still and reciprocates by fisting at his shirt to drag him down and over her, smiling delightedly, laughing, letting her limbs tangle loosely with his.

* *

Nathaniel sits patiently on the end of the bed as Rebecca smooths her dress over in front of the full length mirror for approximately the nineteenth time; the nervous, frantic energy is rolling off her in waves and she hasn’t stopped fidgeting since she got out of the shower. If he’s growing impatient with her he barely shows it, quietly watching her until she meets his gaze in the mirror and his eyebrows raise, silently asking if she’s ready to leave yet.

“I’m sorry,” she says, hands clenching and eyes dropping to her feet. “I just…” She trails off and takes a deep breath before turning around to face him. “I haven’t seen my mom since… you know.”

She makes a clicking noise to punctuate and instantly regrets it - she swears he pales a little bit once he realises what she’s talking about, pushing off from the bed and to his feet to stand closer to her.

“Oh,” he says. “She, uh… she knows, though, right?”

“Yeah. As much as Paula told her. I mean, we haven’t discussed it, like, at all. Which is fine because my mom, she has this tendency to be kind of flippant about it? I don’t know. I guess my ongoing mental health issues have been a bit of a drag for her the whole time I was growing up. Me trying to off myself is probably just a regular Tuesday to her by now.”

He frowns at her.

“Rebecca.”

She hunches in on herself, every muscle in her body tensing and pulling taught, and despite his own obvious discomfort at the topic of conversation Nathaniel makes himself move forward and ease her gently into him. She lets him but doesn’t relax completely, shaking her head as if in an attempt to dispel the unpleasant mood.

After allowing herself the brief moment of leaning against him she steadies herself with a deep breath and steps away, turning back to the mirror for a final once-over, grimacing.

“I am so not in the mood to deal with Audra Levine tonight.” 

When Nathaniel shifts into the frame beside her, hands shoved deep in his pockets, she regards the image of the two of them together and can’t help the tiny smile that fights its way on to her face. Nathaniel catches it and smiles back at her through the glass. 

“Maybe we should just stay in,” she says, turning back to him and sliding a hand up his chest to rest on his shoulder. “This room is like, _super_ nice and it would save us both a lot of hassle.”

“Hmm, tempting,” he hums, glancing heavenward as if considering the offer. “But you flew me all the way out here to meet your mom, and I made a point of dressing to impress so it’d really be a waste.”

The mischievous glint in her eye as she rakes her gaze over him to assess this claim leaves him feeling warm and a little relieved; she grabs her purse off the bed and slings it breezily over her shoulder.

“Hey – do you think you could cover the donation side of things because I know you’re good for it and honestly I could do with the extra brownie points. Plus I really need to stop dropping cool ten thoundos on things because my bank balance has more ups and downs than my brain chemistry and I’m still paying half the rent on a house I barely sleep at anymore.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m kidding,” she says, patting him appeasingly on the arm as they head for the door. “But also bring your chequebook.”

* * *

“So what is this fundraiser for, exactly?” Nathaniel asks, swiping a glass of champagne from a passing server and proffering it to her.

Rebecca takes it without looking at him, distractedly combing the room for signs of people she recognises, already making mental note of the path to the bar that would result in the least amount of unnecessary mingling.

“I don’t know… children, probably,” she says, unfocused. “That’s what people fundraise for, right? Children that like, can’t afford shoes or read or have cancer or something. Something depressing, I’m sure, so let’s just not talk about it.”

She clocks Audra at approximately the same time the other woman notices her, both their mouths flattening into grim lines as they stride purposely towards each other, their respective partners trailing bemusedly behind. Audra’s left hand wraps automatically around her husband’s arm like a creeper vine, her wedding band winking at Rebecca like the obnoxious flower that comes with it. 

“Bunch.”

“Levine.”

“Rebecca.”

“David.”

Nathaniel’s gaze blinks confusedly between the three of them before he clears his throat and leans forward to introduce himself only to have Rebecca quickly cut him off. She mimics Audra’s hold, arm shooting around Nathaniel’s, a little jerkily, throwing him slightly off balance.

“Have you met my boyfriend, Nathaniel J. Plimpton the Third, Esquire? You would have heard of his family’s firm in LA – Plimpton, Plimpton and Plimpton? Did I mention how he’s perfect and also that he’s my boyfriend?”

“ _This_ is your new boyfriend?” Audra asks, brows raised.

Something akin to panic claws its way into her chest and Rebecca takes a deep, steadying breath before replying, her voice turning a little shrill.

“Boyfriend? Did I say boyfriend? Silly me, I meant fiancé. It’s still new, so I have to retrain myself on how to refer to him. I’d love to show you the ring, but it’s being resized. You know me - chunky fingers. Just imagine something really big, and really expensive, with diamonds, and whatever picture you get in your head my ring is like, three of those put together.”

Nathaniel frowns deeply and opens his mouth to say something but before he can speak Rebecca kisses him, hard; her palm wraps around the back of his head to pull him against her and to his extreme irritation he melts into it immediately.

When she draws back she’s smiling but her eyes are boring into him with frightening intensity, daring him to contradict her. She turns to laugh loudly at Audra whilst smoothing her hand over his chest.

“Sorry. We just can’t keep our hands off each other - you know how it is.”

“Boy, you sure move fast,” Audra says. “But we kind of learned that from the last one, didn’t we? Congrats on the second engagement, maybe this one might actually make it down the aisle.”

“Oh, I’ll drag him kicking and screaming if I have to,” Rebecca assures, her other hand digging into his bicep.

Nathaniel chuckles obediently but squeezes his fingers into her hip in response.

(The fact is he couldn’t care less about the lie, or any of these people, for that matter. What does kind of bother him is the compulsion driving her to lie in the first place, because whilst he’d usually be more than happy to play along and mess with a bunch of weird people he doesn’t know, he’s also been trying really, really hard not to be an enabler.)

“Can I talk to you alone for a second, sweetheart?” he says through his teeth, his arm threading around her waist in order to steer her back out into the hallway. “What was that? What the hell has gotten into you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for starters, the last I checked we weren’t engaged. Why are you so hell-bent on impressing all these people, anyway? What do you care what they think? If they’re all as terrible as you make out, then their opinions are meaningless.”

“Look, I appreciate the concern, but right now I really need you to be Old Nathaniel.”

He rolls his eyes. 

“There is no Old Nathaniel. Old Nathaniel is my father. Or grandfather. I’m the same person I’ve always been.”

“Mmm, are you though? Or has being around me taught you a modicum of capriciousness and compassion?” She punches him lightly on the chest for effect. “You have a heart now. You have whimsy.”

“I most certainly do not have… whimsy.”

“You totally do. Because I’m whimsical and my whimsy is contagious and I’ve just whimsied all over you and made you soft,” she says, leaning closer to his ear and dropping her voice. “And you know, the opposite of soft, as well, because I’m multi-talented like that.”

He clears his throat and pushes her back slightly.

“Stop.”

She bites her lip and quirks a suggestive eyebrow at him.

“But back to the point, I need ruthless, stone cold, scheming Nathaniel. The one that wanted to fire four people whose names he didn’t know without a single second’s thought for their wellbeing, but who also enjoys masquerades.”

“Again, not a different person. That was business. I was doing my job, which I didn’t get extremely good at by being sympathetic. Should I find it concerning that you still seem to think I have an evil super power of being a Disney villain that I can switch on and off at will?”

“I was thinking something a little sexier, like _The Thomas Crown Affair_. Only instead of stealing paintings we’re just slightly misleading everyone here I’ve ever met.”

“Rebecca.”

“Nathaniel,” she mocks. She softens, going for a different approach. “Look, I know that… fake engagement thing back there was probably super weird but you just don’t understand mine and Audra’s dynamic, that’s all. I promise I’ll try and cool it on the improv, okay?” 

He sighs resignedly and stuffs his hands into his pockets, which she stubbornly takes as a form of agreement. 

When her phone buzzes she checks her messages and rolls her eyes as she types a reply, tugging him back towards the function room, her attention once again devoted primarily to scouring the crowd. 

“Brace yourself,” she mutters as a warning, unable to elaborate before her mother descends suddenly upon them, having singled Rebecca out from afar like a hawk.

“Well, well, well. So you finally decided to come see your mother. I suppose I should be honoured. Not that coming back for Passover would have killed you. Who’s this? He looks Aryan. Are you sure he’s not a Nazi?”

“Oh my god, Mom. I would not bring home a Nazi.”

“I wouldn’t put it past you. You’ve always liked pulling dramatic stunts just to shock me.”

“Okay, because I’m the shocking one in our relationship. Sure.” She rolls her eyes. “Mom, this Nathaniel. He’s also a lawyer and he went to Stanford.”

“Nice to meet you,” Nathaniel offers, extending his hand.

“Stanford,” Naomi repeats. “Finally you’ve stumbled across someone in that tumbleweed town of yours with a half decent education. Is he trying to shake my hand?”

Rebecca gently pushes his hand down.

“Yeah, don’t do that. It’s a whole thing.”

“So how was the flight here? How was the in-flight entertainment - terrible? Last time I flew it was fifty channels and every one of them was that show about the loser nerds and the girl with the hair – I don’t know how it’s still going.”

“Yeah, no one really does. Actually, Mom, we came by private jet,” Rebecca says proudly, with a small flourish. “Nathaniel’s family owns one. It had a very nice couch, so we pretty much just made out for five hours with a light champagne break in the middle. It was very relaxing.” 

She shrugs apologetically at Nathaniel’s incredulous look.

“Private jet?” Naomi echoes. “Very nice. I like a man that knows how to travel in style. Where are you staying?”

“We’re booked in at the Ritz,” Rebecca says dismissively.

“I still don’t understand why you insisted on a hotel – that pull out sofa has done you just fine every other time you’ve been in town. It’s not like I haven’t washed the sheets since the last boy you brought home – what a disaster that one turned out to be. I don’t know what got into you, racing down the aisle with that oriental.”

Nathaniel’s initial frown shifts into contemplation as he glances upward and tilts his head in a way that suggests he doesn’t entirely disagree.

“ _Mom!_ ” Rebecca hisses.

“Oh, don’t try to play it coy, Rebecca. You can’t click your heels and wish away an entire failed wedding. A lot of people had the inconvenience of having to witness that travesty first hand. The family is still dealing with the embarrassment. You know, when I told that man-child to propose to you I was doing you a favour. But you just had to go and spook him by setting that impractical wedding date – no wonder he got cold feet. You’ve always been too demanding, ever since you were a child.”

Rebecca goes still, her stomach turning hard and cold.

“I’m sorry – when you told Josh to do what? You _told_ Josh to propose to me?”

“Of course I did. Your little doofus of a high school sweetheart still has the brains of pre-pubescent boy – do you think he could have come up with that kind of thing on his own? Don’t be obtuse, Rebecca. You were pulling away from him, and you were about to ruin everything. What else was I supposed to do? You were never going to find a husband at that rate. Not that it ended up doing much good in the long run. Maybe this one will be more of a keeper.” Naomi looks Nathaniel up and down. “He looks like he has stamina. Good breeding, too. I can always tell. Knows how to fill a suit.”

Nathaniel shifts uncomfortably under her gaze and Rebecca snaps her fingers aggressively to re-commandeer her mother’s attention.

“Okay. Do not talk to him. Do not look at him. Just stop. You put your hands over your ears,” she adds, turning to Nathaniel briefly before back to her mother. “We’re done here. You don’t get to interfere again. That’s why we’re staying at a hotel. Because you have no understanding of what boundaries are. Maybe you’re right and I do a good enough job of messing up my life on my own, but you know what has never helped? You. You, walking around the house in your Spanx, or blowing into town to criticise my life, or drugging me with milkshakes, or engineering proposals of marriage that ultimately fall flat because they didn’t come from the person they were supposed to. So just stop.”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Naomi snips. 

“Fine. I won’t use any tone with you. We’re done here. I need a drink.”

“Uh… it was nice to meet you?” Nathaniel offers civilly, albeit a little begrudgingly before rushing to catch up with his bristling girlfriend making a very determined beeline for the bar. “Rebecca, slow down.”

“Why do I do this? Why do I keep telling myself I can handle being back here? I’m a masochist. I’m a moron.”

“Masochist, I’ll pay. Moron? Mm, debatable.”

He watches with a frown as she downs her entire drink in two pained gulps before gesturing for another.

“Hey, why don’t you ease up a little on those, hmm?” he says, picking up the second glass before she can. “This is a fundraiser, not a frat party.”

She shoots him a withering look then checks herself, dialling it back a notch.

“Sorry,” she says, her crisp tone belying the word.

She’s forced to leave him at their table unattended when she’s accosted by a gaggle of her cousins, desperate to drag her over to catch up, probably looking for gossip about the public disaster that was her aborted nuptials. Nathaniel waves her away after their brief introductions, unconcerned, content to take a moment to check his emails on his phone. 

Talking to her family isn’t always as terrible as she builds it up to be, she supposes - some of her relatives are almost likeable in the right light and yeah, maybe she’ll admit it if she has to that some of the photos of their progeny are kind of cute. She’s never really been a baby person but she guesses for hapless unintelligible life forms they’re objectively not entirely repulsive and at the very least she’s socially clued-in enough to coo at the appropriate times.

She’s halfway through her own contribution to the catch up via a brief recount of her surprise birthday party, complete with a broad gesture in the direction of the man responsible for planning it - _you guys all met my totally amazing boyfriend, right? -_ when she happens to catch sight of who has joined Nathaniel at the table in her absence. 

She watches the way Audra tilts her head back to laugh at something he says, her hand resting briefly on his knee, and something cold and insidious curls in her stomach. 

If her cousins notice her immediate abandonment of interest in their exchange they don’t show it, easily changing topics and taking back over the brunt of the talking. Rebecca crosses her arms over her chest, trying to force herself to remain unbothered, but she can’t help her gaze from flitting back towards the two of them of its own accord.

Once the other brunette excuses herself from the table Rebecca resumes her approach, Nathaniel smiling and sliding to his feet when he sees her.

“Hey,” he says. “I thought I’d lost you for a minute there.”

“Yeah, I had a couple of boring second cousins’ life stories to catch up on. So, um. What were you just talking to Audra about?”

There’s something in her tone that’s very _e tu, Nathaniel?_ that he doesn’t like, and he slips one of his hands into his pocket and frowns.

“Work. Nothing important. Why?”

“It just looked like you were having fun, that’s all.”

He expels an unimpressed breath through his nose.

“Don’t do this,” he warns, holding up his hand and shaking his head at her.

“Do what?”

“This thing that you’re doing. Where you’re trying to find something to be angry about. I get that your family and all these people, they put you on edge, but I’m not going to fight with you. You wanted me here as support, not cannon fodder.”

She glowers at him just as Audra returns with a fresh drink, brushing Nathaniel lightly on the shoulder as she comes to stand beside them.

“Rebecca, you’re back. Your _fiancé_ and I were just having a little chat about how you two met,” she snips, her emphasis on the word fiancé making it obvious Nathaniel has given their game away. “Isn’t that right, Nate?”

Rebecca’s smile is belied by the position her eyebrows immediately take up in her hairline.

“Nate?” she repeats at him.

“I didn’t tell her to call me that. You need to calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” she snaps, deflating guiltily when he visibly flinches. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I just… I need some air.”

“Rebecca -”

“Don’t follow me.”

* * *

He does, though, because it kind of seems like he should.

Rebecca’s sitting on the limestone wall edging the outside garden, her arms cocooned forlornly around herself. There’s something resigned in her expression, and she looks tired – exhausted, even – and when she sees him she sighs and drops her hands into her lap.

“I thought I told you not to follow me.”

“Yeah, I ignored that.”

He sits down beside her and she shuts her eyes, letting her head drop back as her fingers clench at the edge of the wall.

“I really wish I had a cigarette right now. I don’t smoke, but it feels like the kind of moment one would help.”

“Smoking’s widely recognised as being terrible for your health, so I’d advise against it. There’s been studies and everything.”

She doesn’t respond, knuckles white where they’re wrapped around the wall still. After a beat longer she opens her eyes but doesn’t look at him.

“So I don’t really understand what the deal is here, with Audra Levine -”

“Oh, why don’t you just go marry Audra Levine?” she sneers, rolling her eyes dramatically.

“First of all, I’m fairly certain she’s already married. I’ve spoken to her husband; he’s a moron. Second of all, are you twelve? Who still talks like that? Thirdly, I have no interest in Audra Levine. I only know her name because you’ve said it about a thousand times since we got here. You’re kind of obsessed with her. And I was talking to her because I don’t know anybody here besides you and the three people you introduced me to and I thought some networking wasn’t a terrible place to start.”

Rebecca considers this, turning the words over in her mind for a moment and finding the explanation reasonable enough. She knows she’s overreacting and Nathaniel’s been nothing but a good sport about this entire trip but she can’t help it; between her agitation and the alcohol she’s feeling a little petty.

“She’s like me, but better. She has my old job and my old life, only she’s not broken. She’s married and she’s happy and she didn’t try to kill herself.”

“Rebecca,” he chides quietly. 

“It’s true! We’ve been pitted against each other our entire lives. And for a while there it looked like I was winning. But then I had a nervous breakdown and she got everything I was meant to have, and I hate her and I know it’s stupid but I don’t care.”

“But you didn’t want it,” he interrupts, matter-of-fact. “You didn’t lose any of it. You walked away. You chose to pursue happiness, right? At least that’s what you told me. She didn’t steal anything from you. You decided you wanted something else and you went after it. There’s no shame in that. That’s… admirable, actually. Also? I don’t know what you’re talking about, because that woman is very obviously miserable.”

“Wait, what? Really?”

“Oh yeah. Let’s just say she’d had a few too many Manischewitz spritzers and a lot of things to say. For starters, her marriage, like all marriages, is unsatisfying and boring.”

“Well there’s no surprise there. Her husband is a terrible lay. Or so I’ve heard,” she adds off his funny look. “Tell me more. Tell me everything. Tell me all the things.”

“Doesn’t that kind of go against your whole, gals-gotta-stick-together feminist vibe?”

“Technically yes but I’m also a giant fat hypocrite and I don’t care, so just lay it on me.”

He’s leaning closer to her now, studying her face for a long moment before he responds.

“No,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “You know why? Because Audra is irrelevant.”

She glances up at that, his choice of words catching her off-guard. 

“I don’t know what it is but being back here, it just always gets to me. And it doesn’t matter who I’m with or how I try to approach it. I just always seem to end up the same way. Sitting in the corner, miserable.”

“So leave. Let’s get out of here. You’re feeling triggered – remove yourself from the situation.”

“As much as I’d love to, I can’t just avoid my family for the rest of my life.”

“No, but you’re allowed to set a quota. And tonight, you’ve reached it. Let’s go back to the hotel, get some sleep, and tomorrow you can try again. In a slightly less volatile setting and preferably without the addition of alcohol – because no offence, I don’t think it’s helping.”

“That is… probably a valid point.”

He nudges her lightly.

“Invite your mother to lunch tomorrow. We came all this way. You should see her.”

“Okay,” she says, hesitantly. “Will you come?”

“Are you sure you want me there?”

“Yes,” she says, firmly. “I will definitely need back up.”

“Then I’ll be there.”

“Hey, do you think you could maybe, like, flirt with her a little bit? She’s always in a way better mood when she thinks someone at the table is a viable sexual partner. You don’t have to actually sleep with her - just make her feel like maybe you would if I wasn’t there. No? Too weird?” she back-pedals, laughing it off when he scrunches up his face. “You’re right, That’s silly. I was kidding. Kidding.” She sobers. “Actually though? Hard pass?”

“I’ll do you one better,” he says, brushing her hair back from her face. He quirks an eyebrow. “I will be a Perfect Plimpton. I hope your mom’s ready to be wowed.”

* * *

When she emerges from the bathroom he’s already in bed, scrolling through something on his phone. He lowers it when he spots her, returning it to the dock on the nightstand and pulling back the covers for her to slide in beside him. Once she’s settled down he flicks the light switch and shuffles down from his position against the headboard to lay with his head on the pillow facing her, humming as her cold toes curl against the front of his shins.

She smells like soap.

“Nathaniel?” she murmurs, walking her fingers up his chest.

“Mmm?”

“Pretty please tell me all the stupid drunk embarrassing things Audra Levine said to you at the party.”

He groans and stops her fingers by trapping her hand in his own.

“You’re incorrigible. Go to sleep.”

Admitting defeat, she scoots a little further up the bed to curl into his side and nuzzle into his neck.

“Thank you for coming with me,” she mumbles into the skin of his throat. “I’m sorry for flipping out. I guess coming home is always going to be difficult for me. You really talked me down, though. So thank you.”

“You are welcome. Thank you for not asking me to sleep on your mother’s fold out sofa.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t so much for your benefit as it was mine, but you’re welcome nonetheless.”

* * *

“So. You’re looking… curvy. And your skin is looking healthier than usual – why is your skin looking so healthy? Is that a glow? Are you pregnant? Rebecca you need to give me warning if you’re going to be pregnant – if I’m going to start being referred to as a grandmother I need time to mentally prepare myself. A grandmother? With this face?”

Nathaniel chokes on his drink and Rebecca hastily reassures him with an emphatic shake of her head and hand on his arm before rounding in on her mother with a glare.

“Oh my god, Mom – I am not pregnant,” she exclaims. “Stop. If my skin looks good it’s just because I’m happy and I’m healthy and I’m living my best life. Can we please drop this?”

“I don’t know what all the hysterics are about. You’re thirty now – that pressure cooker of yours isn’t going to be what it used to be. Not that certain parts of you will ever be the same after giving birth, either - I mean can you imagine, having to push out a head the size of yours?”

“Oh god please stop,” Rebecca moans, promptly downing half her wine.

“And it’s not like you’d be throwing away your career – you already took care of that. You know Audra Levine -”

Rebecca stifles the burgeoning urge to make pterodactyl noises in response and allows her eyes to roll shut and her mother’s voice to fade out into static. She briefly considers excusing herself to the bathroom but decides leaving Nathaniel alone with her mother in the midst of baby talk probably isn’t the smartest thing for their relationship.

“Rebecca?”

Her eyes open at the sound of Nathaniel’s voice beside her, finding his head ducked and tipped in her direction, brows raised in concern.

“Yeah, I’m here,” she says quietly, shaking her head to focus. She clears her throat and pushes on, louder. “So Mom – what’s new with you? You know, besides fighting the physical signs of aging by remaining grandchild-less - which is working, by the way.”

She dutifully swallows every inane anecdote her mother produces in order to chastise her for all the things she’s missing out on by living somewhere else. The tempered socialite in Nathaniel is impressively well-equipped for handling the wild twists and turns conversations with Naomi Bunch are prone to taking, and there’s a certain sense of relief for Rebecca in not having to feel obligated to continually parry him through.

“But enough about me,” Naomi eventually insists. “It’s you I want to hear about. You haven’t even told me how the two of you met.”

Rebecca and Nathaniel exchange a loaded glance before he clears his throat and gestures open handed at her, letting her decide on an explanation herself. She doesn’t bother with a lie.

“So that’s kind of a funny story. We may have left out the part where Nathaniel is sort of my boss. He’s majority owner of the firm where I work. It’s totally not weird, though – I signed a thing, so.”

She shrugs, playing it cool, but internally bracing herself for the inevitable criticism to follow.

“You know I have no problems with nepotism. I’m glad you’re finally doing some social climbing. What?” Naomi snips at Rebecca’s loud groan.

“I can assure you your daughter’s position in the firm has nothing to do with our relationship,” Nathaniel interjects smoothly, raising an amused eyebrow. “While her work ethic occasionally leaves a little to be desired, she is very good at her job. In fact, her legal acumen is what drew myself and my father’s attention to begin with.”

“Of course it did. My little Becky has always been a star, and I’ve always wanted nothing but the best for her. We just happen to disagree on what the best is – and I’ve always known she’s too good for that place. No offence, Nathaniel,” Naomi adds with a terse smile. 

“None taken. I happen to agree with you,” Nathaniel says, and Rebecca’s eyes fly to his in surprise. “An attorney of your daughter’s calibre should never have ended up at a place like Whitefeather and Associates. But I’m glad she did. And not just for the obvious reason. That office was… almost …a good one, but now? It has the potential to become a great one. But without someone like Rebecca, that transition would never be possible.” He folds his hands in front of him, leaning across the table a little, almost conspiratorially. “I know it’s easy to conflate success with paygrade – I’ve been guilty of that myself. I didn’t know Rebecca when she lived here in New York and I have no doubts she would have made an amazing junior partner. But what she’s doing in West Covina is important, too. Because she’s making things better by being there, but she’s doing what’s right for herself at the same time. And that’s not settling for second best. That’s survival.”

Rebecca’s not sure she’s ever seen her mother speechless in her entire life but there’s a definite short stretch of silence after Nathaniel finishes talking in which Naomi Bunch isn’t completely sure how to respond. Rebecca can tell because she kind of feels exactly the same way – like her throat is a little too tight and that for a few seconds she can’t quite pull in enough air.

“Survival,” Naomi says eventually, crinkling into a smile. “Now that’s a language I understand. Let me chase down a waiter and get us some refills, hmm?”

“Wow,” Rebecca says incredulously once her mother has flitted away, touching her hand briefly to his thigh. “What the hell was that?”

“The truth,” Nathaniel shrugs. “I meant it.”

“You are, like, the horse whisperer of judgmental Jewish mothers – you get that, right? They should make documentaries about you.”

Her jest fades into sincerity and her brow furrows as she reaches between them to grab his hand, giving it a tight, grateful squeeze. He looks only briefly surprised before squeezing back, threading their fingers together and keeping them that way in her lap.

The rest of the lunch passes amazingly without event, the conversation almost uncharacteristically neutral. Nathaniel is genial and suave, Rebecca managing to remain on the more cheerful side of civil and Naomi barely says anything offensive and to her credit doesn’t terrorise the waiter that fumbles with the bill at all. 

“Oh, no. Please,” Nathaniel says, waving dismissively at Naomi when she fishes for her purse, pulling out his own credit card instead. “Allow me. My treat.”

“This, I like,” Naomi announces, with an impressed look at Rebecca who nods, wide-eyed in agreement. “He knows how to treat women.”

“I’m not even going to touch on how antiquated that is,” Rebecca sighs, “because I’m just happy that you’re happy.”

Naomi slides back her chair and drops her napkin in front of her on the table.

“I’m going to hit the ladies’ before we go. Room, I’m not a footballer,” she clarifies, and Rebecca joins her in laughing loudly as she leaves.

“Sorry,” Rebecca says, cutting off abruptly once her mother is out of earshot. “It’s this whole dumb bit we do. But mm, look at you, pulling out all the stops,” she purrs, pleased, leaning over his shoulder and wrapping her arms around him, pressing her lips to his cheek. 

“And not a single lie required,” he points out, tilting into it.

“You’re so hot when you’re impressing my mom. You are so getting lucky tonight,” she says a little breathily, through her lashes, and he rolls his eyes and shrugs out of her grasp as their server returns with his card.

When Naomi returns from the bathroom he rises to his feet and pushes Rebecca’s chair in for her once she stands, passing over her purse.

“I’ll meet you outside?” he suggests quietly, and off her nod turns to her mother. “It was a pleasure meeting you. Hopefully we can do this again sometime.”

“Believe me, Nathaniel - the pleasure was all mine.” She pats him on the shoulder. “You two have a safe flight home on that private plane of yours. Bye bye now.”

“Mother,” Rebecca says sunnily once he’s gone, forcing a cordial smile.

“Rebecca, I want you to be careful with that man,” Naomi says suddenly, turning serious. 

Rebecca blinks.

“Wait, what? What are you talking about - you loved him. There’s no way you didn’t love him. He’s the real life actualisation of everything you would have put on the ‘looking for’ section of my dating profile if I’d let you write it like you wanted to that one time.”

“Exactly, which is what worries me,” her mother says through slightly gritted teeth. “Dating someone that looks good to your mother on paper - is this you acting out again? I know you Rebecca and I know what you’re like. You have a tendency to be… fragile, about things. I don’t want you to get hurt like you did the last time. Like you always do.”

“Wow, you feeling okay, there, Mom? That almost sounded like genuine concern,” Rebecca says, taken aback.

“What are you talking about, Rebecca - of course I’m concerned. You’re my daughter and I love you. I just want to be sure you’re looking after yourself. I can’t… I couldn’t bear to see you go down that road again.”

She hears the candid affliction in her mother’s voice and though neither of them are ready to hash out the specifics of that particular conversation yet in so many words, she understands the sentiment and softens, swallowing around the tightness in her throat. She wraps her hands around each of her mother’s arms and squeezes.

“I hear what you’re saying,” she says sincerely, “and thank you. I’m doing good, Mom - I promise. This is good for me. I’m working through some stuff.”

She releases her grip on Naomi’s arms and enfolds her in a hug.

“I’ll see you for Hanukkah,” Naomi says, and Rebecca pulls back to tilt her head.

“Maybe,” she says. “Probably not. I’ll - look, I’ll think about it, okay.”

They share a tiny smile.

* * *

That night back at the hotel Rebecca’s humming to herself as she packs, pleasantly full from the dinner they’ve just enjoyed together. Nathaniel’s lounging back on the bed and the television is on low but he’s watching her instead of the screen as she pads back and forth across the room.

When she returns from brushing her teeth and places her phone on charge on the nightstand he grabs her hand as she passes, tugging her gently towards him.

“Hey. Leave the rest of that for the morning. C’mere.”

She pulls her hand from his and moves into the entryway to shut off the overhead lights before joining him on the bed; she crawls over him, deliberately clumsily just to hear him elicit exaggerated grunts of discomfort every time an unwieldily limb knocks against his and she laughs as she settles against him. Once their faces are close enough to allow it they greet each other with a kiss.

She isn’t entirely sure how long they just lie there but the stretch of time is significant; she doesn’t feel tired exactly but satisfyingly mellow, deep breathing synchronised effortlessly with his. After awhile it starts to feel intensely intimate and a little terrifying, which if she’s completely honest is usually her cue to initiate sex, in equal parts desperately clinging any shred of an emotional connection and simultaneously not being overly keen to examine those emotions particularly closely. She considers it - his body is warm and solid beneath hers and staring at the curve of his mouth for a few seconds is generally all the convincing she needs - but then she thinks about what Dr Shin said about her relationship with sex and the homework he gave her and stops herself. If she pushes past the fluttering of anxiety there’s a blanket of calm and contentment she realises she’s more than happy to cocoon herself in; in a weird way this already feels like an afterglow, only this time the slow-burn of endorphins is coming from a place of feeling overwhelmingly safe and unequivocally supported, a sensation that’s startlingly foreign to her.

She’s not entirely convinced he understands what he’s done, of how unexpectedly and completely he’s come through.

“So I know I kind of promised you were getting laid tonight,” she begins. “But I’m also happy and sleepy and comfortable where I am. Thoughts?”

“I can take a raincheck,” he murmurs, hands cupping the sides of her head, threading into her hair to massage her scalp, earning an appreciative groan in response.

She kisses him, slowly but briefly, his thumb stroking down over her eyebrow, her cheekbone, the swell of her lips once she pulls away. His other hand slides down to splay open-palmed on the small of her back, dipping beneath her shirt where it’s already ridden up, tracing absent patterns on the exposed skin. It’s like he can’t bring himself to stop touching her, and she feels the same, languidly mapping his collarbone, navigating the dips in his shoulders, tasting the hint of salt in the hollow of his throat. She drags her nose down the sinews in his neck, inhaling, before relaxing and resting her head on his chest.

“Thank you for coming with me this weekend,” she says quietly. “It really meant a lot. I mean that.”

He almost looks embarrassed, ducking his head away, his hand stilling on her back.

“I’m sorry if it didn’t go the way you planned. I… wanted this to be better for you.”

She blinks at him in surprise at that, lifting her head again to look at him.

“Are you kidding? This was…” She searches for the appropriate sentiment. “I know the fundraiser wasn’t my finest hour, but talking with you afterwards helped me realise some stuff. I need to stop letting my old life hold so much power over me. This isn’t my home anymore. It’s where I’m from, but I’m not the same person I was when I lived here and I need to stop holding myself to those standards. And as for today, with my mom… honestly, it was perfect. You were perfect. Just like you promised.”

There’s a lump in her throat growing bigger the longer she pushes on, and when he hears the crack in her voice Nathaniel frowns, rubbing her back in slow, soothing circles.

“I know what it’s like to carry the weight of your family’s expectations,” he says. “It doesn’t go away just because you leave. But it does get easier to ignore. And luckily for you, you have the pleasure of a whole lot more miles than me.”

“Yeah, the distance has never really stopped my mother - I’m not totally convinced she can’t physically transcend the telephone line when she’s worked up enough about something, she’s like the real life version of a Howler - but you’re right. And I know you’ve got a similar situation going on with your dad. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m good,” he says, lifting her up with him as he reaches over to switch off the lamp. “We can save my issues for another evening.” 

“I mean, we’d almost definitely be up all night, otherwise,” she agrees, “so that’s probably smart.”

When she lays her head back down she can hear the slow and steady thump of his heartbeat, almost amplified in the darkness, the sensation simultaneously scary but safe, Nathaniel nosing gently through her hair.

* * *

He’s facing away from her in the bed when she blinks awake, the sunlight streaming in through the curtains casting an enticing golden glow over the bare expanse of his back, the muscles there rippling beneath the skin when he groans quietly and twitches in his sleep. Rebecca bites down on her lip before edging closer to sleepily press a kiss to his shoulder blade, snaking her arm around his waist and tucking her chin into the curve of his neck.

Nathaniel doesn’t open his eyes but makes a noncommittal noise of acknowledgement; he’s awake, then, but barely, and one of his hands fumbles up to encircle her wrist where it rests against his stomach. When his thumb starts rubbing absently back and forth over her skin she feels herself start to lull lazily back towards slumber, the sound of his voice startling her when he eventually speaks.

“What time is it?”

She resents the implication wholeheartedly that she should be the one to open her eyes to check and instead stubbornly snuggles closer, eyes scrunched firmly shut.

“Sunday,” she says instead, and the rumble of his laugh vibrates through her where she’s pressed against him. 

She whines in protest when he starts to move away from her, taking the opportunity to slip her other arm beneath him when he lifts away from the mattress to reach for his phone, enfolding him in a determined embrace and haphazardly slinging a leg over his hip in an attempt to pin him back down.

“Feeling a little trapped, here,” he says wryly, lifting his arm to peer awkwardly back at her.

“Yeah, and I didn’t think this through,” she yawns, feeling him tense as the air she expels tickles the back of his neck. “You’re going to give me a dead arm.”

He shifts his weight forward so she can withdraw but she chooses to ignore the gesture and squeezes him tighter instead, earning a surprised grunt from him in return.

“You are very… grabby, today,” he says then clears his throat, which ends up turning into a shaky laugh when her hands start to wander; he knows he kind of walked into that one. Not that he’s complaining.

“Still worried about what time it is?” she asks throatily in his ear.

He takes a hazy moment to respond, and she loves how pressed against him like this she can feel when his breath hitches and leaves him completely. 

“I think I’ve moved past it.”

She hums in assent, all delusions of a sleep-in promptly abandoned but willing to accept the compromise - they barely leave the bed all day.


	4. iv.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo boy, this monster of a chapter is finally done. We're in the home stretch, here, folks!

Rebecca barely bothers glancing up at the sound of the door opening.

She’s left the bed three times since he slipped away six hours ago—twice to use the bathroom and once to look for food, to little avail. She’d returned instead with a large mug of coffee and one of the few fiction books she could find gracing Nathaniel’s shelves, curling up on his side of the mattress, his lingering warmth long gone but the smell of him still in the pillows. It’s not a particularly productive way to spend a Saturday morning, she's well aware; Dr Shin would probably have a few choice words to say about the importance of hobbies and having a life outside the co-dependent confines of Nathaniel’s apartment, but she’s feeling lazy and self-indulgent and maybe, just a little, happy to have him come home. Besides—reading is a hobby, right?

Nathaniel drops his satchel by the door, pausing to unbutton his cuffs and roll his shirt sleeves up his arms. She can see the way he pushes his hair up and off his forehead in her periphery, his chest heaving a heavy sigh before be bends to rid himself of his shoes. 

Still she plays it casual; her gaze never strays from the page but she’s stopped making out the words, her attention stubbornly fixated on him out the corner of her eyes despite her efforts.

Apparently done with shedding unnecessary layers he finally drags himself up the bed to slide in next to her, ducking his head under the outstretched arms holding her book up in the air over her to cushion his cheek on her chest. She tips the book to the side and twists to look at him, quirking her eyebrows at his choice of pillow.

“Hi,” she says.

He grunts noncommittally in response, arm tightening around her waist as he nuzzles further into her cleavage.

“Rough morning, huh?” she asks, shutting the book and dropping it on the nightstand in favour of burying both hands deep in the thickness of his hair. 

He mumbles in agreement.

She’s already expressed her disdain for his insistence on working on the weekend—at around 6 a.m. when she was rudely pulled from slumber by the sound of his alarm—so her sympathy for his plight is limited. By the same token she knows any interaction with his father is bound to be fraught with some form of tension or another, though, so she’s willing to concede to him on some level.

“Hey, don’t fall asleep on me there,” she says, deliberately jostling her body and by extension, him. “No napping, remember? I distinctly recall that napping is for the weak.”

He groans, pouting a little, and rolls off her onto his side before pulling her down and firmly against him, hand carding through her hair once she complies with an ungraceful wriggle across the mattress.

“No, see, I’ve come to realise the error of my ways that it’s not napping if it’s with you—it’s spending quality time with my girlfriend and that’s different. That’s manly.”

“Hmm, well, as always I’m so glad to be the magical loophole in your eternally troubling relationship with masculinity.”

“Hey now, you’re more to me than just a loophole,” he negates, nudging her nose with his.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, there are other things you’re good for. Like…” He trails off with a frown. “Actually, you know what? I’m drawing a complete blank here. You don’t cook. You don’t clean. You’re kind of a terrible girlfriend.”

She scowls, pinching his stomach through his shirt and earning an undignified yelp of pain in response.

“And you’re a sexist jackass that won’t be getting any for a very long time if he keeps it up. Which, by the way, is what I bring to this relationship. My irresistible body and acerbic wit. What do you contribute? A credit card?”

“Oh, you are so lucky I’m exhausted and can’t be bothered moving right now or it would be on,” he murmurs haughtily down his nose at her, eyes sliding distractedly to her lips. “Furthermore, you withholding sex is just about the emptiest threat I’ve ever heard.”

“What? You think I don’t own a vibrator? ‘Cause I do. I have like, three. And the batteries probably need replacing in all of them.”

“You couldn’t last two weeks,” he scoffs. “Literally. Your doctor _literally_ asked you to go two weeks and you couldn’t do it without me physically restraining you. So I will continue to steadfastly call that bluff, thank you very much.”

She narrows her eyes and forces a glare at him for a moment or so before caving and closing the remaining distance between their mouths, kissing him gently and affectionately. Nathaniel makes a quiet noise of contentment, his hand coming up to cup her elbow. When she draws back she focuses her attention on his buttons, to his amused raised eyebrow, only to surprise him by pressing closer to rest her head on his now exposed chest, hand slipping under the edge of his shirt. He laughs quietly and settles his arm around her back.

“If we set a twenty minute alarm does it still count as quality time, or does that push us back into unmanly napping territory?” she asks. “This is all very subjective.”

“It depends—are you going to make a habit out of measuring out our time together in twenty minute increments?”

“I mean, there’s a lot of things you can get done in twenty minutes. Power napping is only one of them.” She traces absent patterns on his skin where she’s still snuck beneath the fabric, allowing her eyes to drift comfortably closed. “Follow up question—is napping automatically manly if it has the word ‘power’ in front of it? I feel like there’s an intentional implication there. Our patriarchal society is pandering to you and I for once think you should just embrace it.”

“Mmm, consider me convinced. Though to be fair, I’m reasonably certain this was my idea.”

She grunts and smacks him lightly, eyes stubbornly clamped shut as he leans forward to fumble for his phone.

“Just shut up and set an alarm already. But maybe make it, like, forty five, because what if it takes us awhile to doze off?”

“You’re barely conscious enough to continue this conversation. I think you’ll be fine.”

“Shhh,” she moans, tucking her face into his neck.

He goes with thirty. The alarm’s for waking up, not getting up, and they can decide on the follow up later.

* * *

They’re half-watching TV.

If Rebecca’s honest she’s pretty tired and kind of unfocused—the disappointing downside to her attempted commitment to actually going to work to, well, work. Her caseload is the heaviest it’s been in awhile and despite enjoying feeling productive it can leave her feeling a little brain dead, at which point the mundanity of staring at a screen and not having to think too hard is a welcome relief. It’s cosy and comforting—Nathaniel stretched out beside her on top of the blankets, still somewhat damp from his shower—and she hums in contentment.

Her hand on his thigh is an absent reflex, more than anything; an automatic affectionate squeeze that she gives without thinking. She definitely hadn’t been looking to start something, not on purpose, but he apparently takes it as a cue regardless, leaning closer, the strong jut of his nose nudging at her jawline. She shivers when he hits the sensitive patch behind her ear, her grip on his leg getting stronger.

She tilts her neck obligingly as he starts peppering kisses down the side of it but keeps her eyes on the screen. After a moment he pulls back a few inches and clears his throat.

“Sorry, you’re trying to watch—”

“No, no—it’s fine,” she says dismissively. “I’ll just… I’ll mute it. I’ll mute it.”

The television falls silent and she drops the remote onto the covers, turning to look at him.

“I mean, we don’t have to,” he says. “I just thought, it’s kind of been a few days.”

She considers that and laughs, genuine and sweet despite the nature of the observation.

“Wow, that’s just like, a really romantic reason to do it.”

“Yeah, well—I’m a romantic guy,” he shrugs, his own lips twitching in amusement. 

“Hmm.”

Her response is noncommittal as she finally twists her body fully towards him, slinging a leg over his. 

They kiss lazily, languidly, and Rebecca closes her eyes and sinks back into the pillows, sighing, thinking about how she could gladly drift off like this, his mouth moulding loosely to hers and his hand sliding down her side to rest on her ribs. She thinks she actually stops actively moving her lips at one point, but Nathaniel’s already turned his attentions elsewhere and she smothers a yawn, lifting her arms obediently when he pulls her up towards him to tug her nightshirt over her head. 

He lowers her back to the mattress, settling his weight over her. She squirms; the messy arrangement of the scrunched up blankets is digging uncomfortably into her lower back and she grunts out her discontent as she tries to reach around herself to dislodge them, Nathaniel catching on and helping her tug at the sheets until they’re less bunched up beneath her. 

“Ow, you’re—ahhh, you’re leaning on my hair,” she yelps, and he edges his elbow to the side apologetically, pausing, pushed up on his forearms to look down at her. 

“Sorry,” he says lightly, thumbing a curl back from her face. “Better?”

She ignores him and jerks her chin pointedly towards the nightstand and huffs when he takes too long, rolling her eyes at the extended stretch of his muscles above her as he swipes clumsily through the drawer. Finally she hears his fingers connecting with foil and sighs, her knees pressing at his sides, impatient.

He kisses the side of her mouth, his free hand squeezing questioningly at her hip. 

“You wanna…? What do you want?”

If she’s perfectly honest she’s pretty happy for him to do most of the work at this stage, so she shakes her head and drags him back down to her by his neck.

“This is fine,” she says, pulling his mouth back to hers.

His ministrations chart down her jaw to her throat and as she arches back she catches a glimpse of purple out of the corner of her eye—Heather’s hair dryer is still on top of her dresser from when she borrowed it three days ago. She’d accidentally overheated it trying to speed up the drying process on a pair of socks she’d been forced to hand wash in the sink after the realisation that she’d once again left it a little too long between laundry loads. She really should double check it’s still functional and either replace it or return it; she kind of needs to stop slowly absorbing Heather’s stuff as her own, although in retrospect maybe she should have just borrowed some socks rather than the dryer. At least that way she wouldn’t have ended up with musty smelling feet and blisters on the backs of her heels where the still-damp cotton had rubbed unforgivingly inside her boots, and ultimately Heather would have been none the wiser.

Come to think of it, those particular socks are probably still balled up in the bottom of her closet where she’d disgustedly tossed them at the end of the day. She _really_ needs to do some laundry.

“Hey—what are you thinking about?” Nathaniel asks, frowning.

“Socks. What? I’m not thinking about socks. Shut up,” she says dismissively, ignoring his confusion and pushing at him until he rolls them over, grabbing at the backs of her thighs to help her settle herself up and over and back down on his hips.

His gaze travels slowly up her body as she moves above him but after awhile she catches it drifting over her shoulder and she raises her eyebrows, gesturing at her chest erratically with a splayed palm.

“I’m sorry, is my heaving bosom distracting you from reruns of Law and Order right now?”

To his credit he looks suitably embarrassed as he scoffs at her.

“You’re the one that left it on,” he points out, groping around blindly for the remote and nearly throwing her off balance in the process, his arm wrapping around her lower back to keep her steady when he sits up to reach for it. She lets out a grunt at the unexpected change in position.

He switches the television off and tosses the remote carelessly off the side of the bed, hands sliding somewhat apologetically up her sides as he settles and keeping his line of vision trained pointedly on her. 

“Your bosom _is_ very distracting though,” he concedes as an afterthought when she grabs both his hands in hers and drags them up to cup her breasts, Rebecca sighing as he thumbs lazily at her nipple.

He tilts his head back into the pillows after awhile, craning his chin up to look at her.

“Close?”

She’s not remotely, and though his impressive stamina would usually be a blessing in that regard she can’t help but be irritated in her exhaustion. She gives him a short, sharp shake of her head, frowning, shifting her weight onto her shins.

“Ball park?”

“God, can you just—”

Pouting, she rocks against him restlessly, still not able to get the angle quite to her satisfaction, and when she makes a noise of frustration and fumbles between them to touch herself he rolls his eyes and shoves her hand away to replace it with his own.

She gets there eventually—Nathaniel is nothing if not stubborn, and getting her off has always been somewhat of a matter of pride for him—but the end result is disappointingly more akin to tripping clumsily up some stairs than soaring off any kind of cliff. They’re both lightly panting when she slides off to collapse next to him in the bed, similar frowns of confusion creeping onto their features.

He clears his throat.

“So that was…”

“Mediocre, right?” she says, the back of her hand coming up to rest on her forehead. “It’s not just me.”

“Oh my god,” Nathaniel says in disgust. “Did we just have… lame sex?”

Rebecca pulls a face, equally appalled. She feels sweaty and tired and dissatisfied, but secretly glad it’s all over.

Nathaniel pushes onto his side to look at her, indicating with a tilt of his head towards her lower extremities.

“I guess I could…”

“Far be it from me to turn down such a rousing offer,” she quips, “but you know, buddy, if your heart’s not really in it, maybe we should just call time on this one.”

He opens his mouth to protest but she cuts him off with an affectionate pat before slipping out of the bed to head for the bathroom, collecting her nightshirt on the way.

When she rejoins him on the bed he’s back propped up on his side, waiting, lips parted like he has something to say but she switches off the lamp wordlessly before he can begin, facing away from him. It’s not completely unheard of for them not to cuddle afterwards but uncommon enough to be unusual, this seeming even more pointed given the context, and Rebecca feels a little guilty when she hears him swallow and flop over onto his back with a heavy sigh. She can’t quite place the uneasiness sinking and settling in her stomach like lead, can’t explain the confusing compulsion to gather her things and go despite the bedroom being hers. 

She sleeps relatively deeply regardless and wakes to the coupling of the alarm with Nathaniel stroking her hair back absently from her face, the divide between them apparently undisturbed throughout the night given the way his arm is forced to stretch across the mattress to reach her. She hasn’t managed to shake off the insidious, anxious bloom in her sleep, though, and she scrunches her eyes shut in an attempt to push it away.

“Good morning,” he murmurs, shifting closer.

“Morning,” she replies, overly cheerily, dodging his kiss and withdrawing in a rush to roll out of the bed, trying to ignore the vaguely hurt look on his face as she pulls away. “I’m gonna go shower,” she says, reaching into her dresser for some clean underwear. “You going for a run?”

He stares at her a moment, his silence making her uneasy until she has to turn away, casting her eyes downward and pretending to focus on shutting the drawer.

“Yup,” he says eventually, flinging off the covers and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, easing into his boxers. 

She doesn’t let herself glance back as she all but flees the room.

* * *

“Code yellow.”

Paula blinks up at her, eyebrows raised.

“I know, I know—you threw away the chart. It’s boy problems. Yellow is boy problems. So c’mon, do your thing. Work your magic. Move the mugs.”

“I remember what yellow is,” Paula snips. “That wasn’t the point I was making. Good morning to you, too.”

Rebecca rolls her eyes and heaves a full-bodied sigh as she drops down into her desk. She dutifully rearranges her features into a smile that’s only half-withering.

“Good morning.”

“Better. Kind of. Good morning, Cookie. How are you today?”

“Terrible. Awful. The worst. I’m freaking out. So could you not leave me hanging, here?”

Paula continues to regard her for a moment, her face begrudging but fond, before obediently moving the mugs obstructing the gap between their cubicles. Rebecca immediately launches herself into the newly exposed space, palms flat on the desk in front of her. Paula lowers herself to the same level obligingly, expression expectant as Rebecca barrels on.

“Last night Nath—” She cuts herself off, lowering her voice and leaning further forward, correcting herself. “Sorry. Benjamin.” Paula shakes her head dismissively and indicates she should just spit it out so she continues on in a rush. “Last night we had sex with the TV on.”

She sucks her lips into her mouth, wincing at her own words.

“Oh,” Paula says with a bit of a chuckle, not particularly concerned until she drinks in Rebecca’s panicked features. “ _Ohh_. Okay. Wow. That bad, huh?”

“Paula, it was awful. It was so… perfunctory? And I was thinking about laundry?I hate laundry. I never even _do_ laundry. I buy new clothes to actively avoid doing laundry. Ugh, it was so weird and gross, I just felt… dirty afterwards, but like, not in a good way.”

“Well, it sucks, but it happens. You’ve had bad sex before and you’ll have it again. And I’m sorry to say that television set isn’t going anywhere—that’s speaking from experience.” At the look on Rebecca’s face Paula frowns and says slowly, “You’ve had bad sex before, right?”

“Of course I’ve had bad sex before,” Rebecca says, rolling her eyes. “In my life. Audra Levine’s husband comes to mind—it’s nothing, it’s fine, it was way before they were married,” she adds hastily off Paula’s disapproving stare. “But not with Nathaniel. Nathaniel and I have amazing sex. Lots of it. All the time. It’s kind of our thing, actually. There’s a lot of issues, going on there, but we are _very_ sexually compatible. Like, it’s almost criminal, how sexually compatible we are.”

“Okay,” Paula interrupts, waving her hand erratically. “You can drop the pseudonym—it wasn’t working anyway—but dial it back on the details a few notches. I get it.” Rebecca blinks and falls silent, and Paula carries on. “You’re telling me you two have been regularly bumping uglies for, what… just over six months, now? And you’re only just now having an off day? Cookie, that’s not cause for concern. That’s… that deserves some kind of award, probably.”

Rebecca looks unconvinced, and Paula heaves a sympathetic sigh.

“Oh, honey. That’s what being in a relationship is. That honeymoon phase can’t last forever. And all that lust and passion, it doesn’t just fade away in to nothing—it evolves. Into intimacy, and familiarity, and stability. And those things are pretty great, too.”

“Okay, but remember when I was with Josh, and I stopped getting goosebumps, and Nathaniel was giving me goosebumps, and now—now look at me, I’m dating him now, so that obviously wasn’t nothing! Paula, what if that’s happening again?”

Paula’s brow furrows in confusion.

“Is somebody else giving you goosebumps that I should know about?”

“No,” Rebecca protests, “but—”

“Listen. I’m sorry to burst your little bubble here, but you’re just going to have to join us mere mortals in accepting that sometimes, the sex is gonna be crappy. It can’t always be spontaneous and wild and boundary testing. Sometimes you’re going to have a headache or be distracted by thoughts of what groceries you need to buy to stick with your meal plan for the week.”

“Yeah, I don’t really cook, so…”

“By thoughts of which places on Ubereats you’ve been meaning to try,” Paula corrects without missing a beat. “The point is, what you’re feeling is completely normal.”

“Is it, though? Paula, there’s no glitter,” Rebecca blurts, cringing.

“What?”

“When I… thought that I was in love with Josh, just being around him made me feel like glitter was exploding inside me,” she says, gesturing desperately at her chest. “I don’t get that with Nathaniel. Is that bad? It’s bad, right? I mean, I definitely like him, but do I like-like him? I thought I did but how can you be sure? Is it just Stockholm Syndrome, at this point? I’m sorry—that’s not the right metaphor to be using but you get what I mean, right? Is it just because he’s there? Are we just really good friends that up until recently have also been having amazing sex? I’m not sure how to tell. Paula, tell me how normal people tell!”

“Woah,” Paula says, shaking her head a little bemusedly, “slow down. First of all, good friends that also have sex is kind of what a relationship is. I mean, it’s definitely more nuanced than that, but it’s a solid foundation. Second of all, honey - there’s no manual for this kind of thing. I can’t tell you how you feel. But where’s all this coming from? I thought you guys have been doing so well - I mean, you had a couple of fights but that’s normal, and you seemed so happy when you two came back from visiting your mom in New York.”

Rebecca considers this; thinks about the last night they spent in that fancy hotel room, how good it had felt just to be close to him, stretched out across him with the dull thud of his heartbeat in her ear and his hands on her as they’d murmured to each other in the dark. How he’s helped her now not only with her dad but also her mom, and how he knows so many scary things about her but barely batts an eye. 

Her momentary lapse into panic eases suddenly with the realisation that his role in her life is not interchangeable but definitely, completely, irrevocably about _him_. It’s equal parts disconcerting and comforting, and she lets out a heavy breath. 

“Oh god, Paula, you’re right. You’re right. I’m being stupid. We just had crappy sex, that’s all it was, and now I’m freaking out over nothing. Of course I like Nathaniel. I like him a lot. Thanks. Thank you,” she says, emphasising with a squeeze of the hand Paula rests on her arm. 

She tries to keep it with her like a mantra for the rest of the day, using every therapy tool at her disposal to work through the warring thoughts in her head. For the most part she does okay, an increasing sense of calm spreading its way through her system the more definitive she gets with her decision making. It’s only when she gathers her things to leave for the day and steps into the elevator that she falters again, the air feeling suddenly stifling.

_Which means you’re bored, right? The chase is over, the sex is lame…_

“Nope. Nuh-uh,” she says firmly to herself, scrunching her eyes shut and shaking her head.

There’s still an entirely different brand of doubt there if she wants to look closer but she definitely doesn’t, pushing that particular hint of apprehension down and away and deep inside her. 

She avoids him the next two nights, making excuses about spending time with Heather when in reality she’s sitting on the sofa by herself, knees hugged up to her chest and deep in thought as she drinks tea and wine and whatever else she can find in the house to help her feel less conflicted.

On the third night he turns up unannounced after work, his expression vindicated when he looks past her from the doorway and finds her alone. 

“Are we fighting? Are you upset with me about something? Is it the TV thing? Because I’m sorry—maybe my focus slipped for a few seconds but your head was somewhere else entirely and I still maintain that you’re the one that left it on,” he bristles, crossing his arms over his chest.

She pads wordlessly over to the couch and sits down, indicating that he should join her. Taking a deep breath, she tilts her head at him, openly abashed.

“I… have been acting really weird since the other night, and I apologise,” she says slowly with a contrite smile. “I don’t know what came over me. Well, that’s not true; I do know, kind of? And I’ve been doing some self-reflection, but shutting you out of that wasn’t fair, and I’m sorry.”

Prickly front entirely faded, Nathaniel now looks wholly uncomfortable, clearly unsure where she’s headed with this so she reaches out to give one of his hands a tentative, reassuring squeeze. He squeezes back without question and suddenly emboldened she shifts closer to him on the couch, body curling into his, gratified when his arms settle encouragingly around her.

“So here’s the thing,” she says. “I don’t need you.”

Nathaniel’s brow creases.

“Okay?”

“That sounds like an insult but it’s not, I promise,” she insists, holding up her hands. “It’s a good thing. I like spending time with you, and I like having dinner with you and I like sharing a bed with you—and by that I don’t just mean the sex, although that is a really big part of it too. I… like having you around. But if you weren’t… I think I would be okay. Don’t get me wrong—it’d hurt, like, _a lot_. But I’d be okay.”

“Mm,” he says, forehead only slightly furrowed as his thumbs rub where his hands rest on her back. “Sometimes you say the sweetest things.”

“But Nathaniel—I want you,” she adds. “Boy, do I want you. Basically all the time. Like Alien after Predator, you know what I’m saying?” She widens her eyes at him to emphasise the point and he lets out a breath of amusement. “But not just like that, either. I want you in my life.”

His tongue darts out to wet his lip and his eyes slide away from hers for a moment before he forces himself to cautiously meet her gaze again.

“I… like having you around too.” He shrugs and clears his throat. “And, you know. Ditto on the Alien thing.”

She smiles broadly, fingers flexing at his neck as she pulls him into her, kissing him in short, sharp smacks until he makes a vaguely frustrated noise and holds her against him, taking the opportunity to deepen the kiss when she opens her mouth to laugh into his. Eventually she draws back and twists in his embrace, back pressed against his chest, pulling his arms snugly around her. He rests his head on her shoulder. 

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she says, reaching back to ruffle his hair, “but can we just watch some TV? And just, actually watch it?”

He makes a show of pretending to be affronted but takes the hint when she lies down and spreads out across the length of the couch, slinging his arm across her to hold her spooned firmly against his front, his other arm supporting him by the elbow, hand at the perfect height for his fingers to thread through her hair. 

It’s relaxed, comfortable and familiar and she revels in all of it, revels in the calm that overtakes her entire body as her steady rise and fall of breath synchronises effortlessly with his. She wants this, outside the simple boundaries of just _wanting_ , and she thinks she can trust enough that he wants it too. 

Halfway through the movie she rolls over, yawning loudly, and he opens his mouth to ask if she’s ready for bed but she shushes him, taking her turn to sneak an arm around his waist, her other hand curling endearingly between them against his chest as she noses sleepily at the neck of his grey t-shirt. 

“I’m happy here,” she insists, burying her head into him.

She makes a noise of protest when he moves away from her, sitting up to reach over the back of the couch for a blanket, and when he shakes it out over the two of them she forgives him with an appreciative sigh.

“Okay,” she says, snuggling down even further.

Nathaniel manages to make it to the end of the movie without dozing off himself, absently stroking her hair as she snores quietly into his shoulder. Once the credits roll he nudges her gently to wake her, chuckling at the protesting pout that immediately scrunches up her features as a result.

“Mmm, what time is it?” she asks, not bothering to open her eyes.

“Way past your bedtime, apparently, so up you get.”

“Don’t wanna,” she refuses. “Can’t we just stay here?”

“You’re welcome to spend the night on the couch if you want, but I barely fit in your bed—I’m not subjecting my back to a night awkwardly hunched up on this thing.”

She cracks an eyelid at that, considering.

“Carry me?”

“I was looking for the option that didn’t hurt my back, actually,” he says lightly.

She swings her arm back to smack him blindly before begrudgingly rolling off the front of the couch and stumbling in the direction of her bedroom, making the whole thing look a hell of a lot harder than it needs be.

* * *

Regardless of the resolution of Rebecca’s momentary lapse into panic, it’s still more than a few days before either of them works up enough courage for their interactions make it past anything more than gentle affection.

She’s brushing her teeth in his bathroom before bed when she spots Nathaniel leaning against the doorway reflected in the mirror and pauses, toothbrush dangling haphazardly out of the corner of her mouth, toothpaste dribbling unchecked down her chin. There’s no way it looks remotely attractive—unflattering display of dental hygiene aside she’s just in her underwear and it’s old and mismatched and her hair is an unmitigated mess—but something about the way he blatantly slides his gaze over her makes her feel prickly and warm and she shifts back and forth uncertainly on the soles of her feet.

Rinsing her mouth and the brush, she places it back on the glass on the sink, finally turning to face him. She stares confusedly at him for a moment before he strides purposefully towards her and grabs her face with both hands, kissing her, _hard_. She makes a muffled noise against his mouth but melts into it, more than happy to match his fervour as his grip slides down to grab at the backs of her thighs, hoisting her unceremoniously up onto the counter. The cold, unyielding metal of the tap digs uncomfortably into her back but she ignores it, arms sweeping around haphazardly to get a steady grip, crashing into the collection of toiletries and sending them scattering around them like bowling pins. She eventually stabilises herself and gives up purchase on the counter in favour of encircling his neck and shoulders, clutching him closer, grunting, hooking her legs around his hips with a sigh.

Two weeks worth of awkwardness manifesting itself as tension melts away, the two of them working in tandem to take care of his buttons until she can slip his shirt off his broad shoulders, humming in satisfaction at the eventual slide of his skin against hers. She’s missed this, this particular brand of intimacy that’s inherently sexual but more about the comforting familiarity with each other’s bodies than anything else. His nose knocks hard against hers, crushing cartilage, and their mouths open in unison, inhaling the same gasp of air.

His shirttails still dip loose around his waist, attached to him by the arms he hasn’t managed to pull from the sleeves while holding her, and when his hand travels between them to test exactly how worked up he’s gotten her she mewls and claws blindly at the cotton, hips slanting frantically forwards into his. He brings her close enough that frustration wins out when he withdraws, her brow knotting in protest as she drops her head forward onto his collarbone in a huff, caught off-guard entirely when he yanks her off the edge and spins her around suddenly in follow-up, corner of the bench grazing her tailbone on the way down before he twists her and shoves her forward, a little unexpectedly rough.

“Oh,” she gulps, surprised, throwing her hands out in time to brace herself against the counter.

Nathaniel’s always been fairly confident in the bedroom—and justifiably so, she’s comfortable to concede—but he’s never taken charge quite so aggressively before, something she finds surprising the more she thinks about it; the man certainly seems to have a lot of pent up frustrations waiting to be let out. She’s definitely down for it, though; his fingers digging bruisingly into her hips and the way he’s almost snarling into her neck sending jolts of hot, white heat through her.

He sheds his shirt before rolling her underwear down her thighs and she steps out of them compliantly, reaching back to help unclasp her bra while he divests himself of his pants. He nips behind her ear as he pushes the straps off her shoulders, palming her appreciatively with a groan and when she arches back into him at the contact he reciprocates the movement before stilling behind her, poised and ready.

“Is this okay?” he asks quietly, pausing, his head hovering to press a kiss to her shoulder, hesitant, and she resists the urge to laugh at the sudden tone shift.

“Just—just stop talking,” she gasps, reaching back awkwardly to curl her hand around his neck. 

It’s all the encouragement he needs.

With his body wrapping around hers from behind and his eyes on her in the mirror mere inches away she feels completely and utterly surrounded by him, the combined heat of his skin and his gaze enveloping her in the most intoxicating way. 

When his hand tangles into her tresses it’s not to tug on them as roughly as she first anticipates; he threads his fingers through the curls and buries his nose in the newly exposed nape of her neck, pressing hot, humid kisses there and mouthing at her sweat-soaked skin. He moves deep and deliberately, his pace more agonisingly slow than she expected from his initial manhandling but it’s good, so good to be doing this again that she can’t believe they ever waited this long.

“Oh my god, Nathaniel,” she chokes out on a crescendo, grateful for the arm he slings around her hips to prevent her from pitching too-far forwards when she falters, following after her with a groan and final surge against the vanity.

He skims his palm along her left thigh, fingers tracing firmly down to massage the muscle there where he can still feel her trembling, soothing her shaking leg with a gentle squeeze. His eyes meet hers in the mirror, both panting, pupils blown wide amongst the blue.

“Okay?” he asks softly, but she’s not ready to formulate words, not yet, so she leans back into him, heart hammering and _god,_ the come down is just as good as the high.

Once she trusts herself to stand unaided she stumbles towards the shower, hand wrapping around his to pull him with her and he follows willingly, reaching behind her to turn on the water before he’s kissing her like he’s determined to make up for the time he’s just spent not being able to reach her mouth. When he finally lets her break for air she drops her head against his chest, gasping, wrapping her arms around his waist as the warm water sluices soothingly down her deliciously stretched limbs. He returns the embrace with a hand on her back and another tangling in her half-soaked hair.

“Oh, this is nice,” she breathes against him, pure contentment radiating through her entire body.

They stand like that for a haze-filled moment, enjoying the sensation of still being pressed together, slick from the water until Nathaniel manoeuvres her gently towards the wall, her head tilting languidly back against the cool tile as he cleans the both of them up. 

“Hi,” she says softly, happily once he returns to her level, kissing him keenly.

He moulds into her, still leisurely mapping her body with his hands, the height of him shielding her from the brunt of the spray. After awhile she pulls back, pushing lightly against his chest. He skims her sides as he obediently takes a step backwards.

He clears his throat.

“So what’s the verdict? Still kind of lame, right?” he asks, cocking his head and feigning a frown.

She shakes her head, letting out a breath of amusement as she reaches over to shut off the water.

“Super lame. The lamest. There’s only one solution to that level of lame.”

“Oh?”

She bites her lip and arches her eyebrows at him over her shoulder as she steps out of the shower and reaches for a towel.

“I guess we’re just gonna have to keep practicing.” She meets his eyes in the mirror in the middle of drying her hair and shrugs. “And by practice you get I mean sex, right? Like, tons and tons of sex.”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat and reaches for her only to have her laugh and pirouette out of reach, yelping when he flicks his towel at her in response. She stops to let him catch her and he wraps the towel around her to pull her into him, neck craning down to look at her.

She runs her fingers affectionately down his arm.

“But in saying that, could we also like, save the practicing for another time and just maybe go to bed and kiss and cuddle a little bit and then go to sleep like the boring people we’re becoming? Because, uh, that kind of already took it out of me.”

“Mmm, stop talking dirty,” he hums before releasing her, turning her around with his hands on her shoulders and pushing her in the direction of the bed, giving her ass a playful swat on the way.

* * *

It’s approximately two thirty in the afternoon when Nathaniel Senior calls to rake his son over the coals over the latest set of productivity reports; nobody knows this explicitly but mostly everybody is able to infer it from the way Nathaniel strides out into the bullpen to dole out a slew of only somewhat unfair criticisms, the flare of his nostrils and set of his jaw a helpful giveaway. There’s a threat about working weekends, hidden in there somewhere, and Rebecca braces herself for the inevitable backlash no doubt headed in her direction but for the most part rolls her eyes, unaffected.

The glass reverberates when he slams the door.

She blinks and when she eventually pulls her gaze away she realises almost everyone is looking at her.

“Nope,” she says immediately. “Not getting involved.”

“Rebecca, honey,” Paula begins cautiously, “I’m all for you trying to set professional boundaries in the workplace but that kind of sounded like it needs to be an exception.”

They both flinch as the rhythmic sound of Nathaniel punishing himself on the treadmill fills the office and Paula widens her eyes as if to say _told you so._

“Fine,” she sighs, sliding away from her desk.

She doesn’t bother knocking, and when she turns around to close the door behind her she spots her colleagues hurriedly feigning busyness in an attempt to pretend they aren’t watching. Rolling her eyes she pulls a face at them before pointedly shutting the blinds.

“Whatcha doin’ there, buddy? I’m gonna take a tiny stab in the dark and guess your dad called.”

Nathaniel’s response comes in the form of an agitated punch at the keypad of the treadmill, kicking the speed up a few notches. When it becomes clear he has no immediate plans to stop she sits down on his couch and folds her hands in her lap, watching him expectantly.

After what Rebecca guesses is a five minute interval the machine beeps and slows to a power walk, Nathaniel’s breathing heavy and laboured as he continues to avoid her eyes.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Not particularly,” he says tersely, tugging at his tie.

“Dude, you need therapy.” She looks up at him. “That came out kind of flippant, like a joke—but I’m serious. You do. Whole lotta untapped issues going on unchecked in your man brain.”

He scoffs at her.

“I don’t need therapy. Therapy is for…”

“Oh, please do go on,” she dares when he trails off. “For what? For losers? Does your dad have a saying about that too?”

He shakes his head dismissively.

“That’s not—well, you know. I don’t need therapy. I’m fine.”

“Yeah, okay, American Psycho. But just so you know, I’m not bailing you out when you get carted off for trying to shove a kitten into an ATM.”

He frowns at her.

“I’m feeling a little attacked here.”

“I just… Do you have an eating disorder? That might be a little blunt but maybe nobody’s ever asked you the question.”

“What? No. For the record, having a diligent workout routine and carefully monitoring your calorie intake does not an eating disorder make.”

“It’s fine if you do. Who didn’t have bulimia in college, right? I mean, it’s not fine—but we can talk about it and get you the appropriate care.”

The treadmill slows to a halt and he hops off to grab his drink bottle, breathing heavy and brow still heavily furrowed.

“Is this still about me? Or are you making a cry for help?”

“Oh no, I’m fine. See, I have a therapist. Multiple therapists, actually. And occasionally drugs. So I’m working through all my stuff. Maybe not always particularly well but the intent is there.” 

“Are you planning on joining a gym anytime soon?” he counters.

“Hey!”

“Hey, turnabout is fair play.”

“I happen to get plenty of exercise, thank you very much.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Sex doesn’t count.”

She pulls a childish face at him then moves around the side of his desk to perch on it in front of where he’s standing. Her demeanour switches back to sincere as she smooths down his tie. 

“It’s just… I care about you. And you care a lot about your health, but I sort of feel like you don’t realise what’s going on in your head is part of it.”

He’s still kind of frowning down at her but the fact that he’s gone quiet and isn’t completely brushing her off gives her some hope he’s at least considering what she’s saying.

“I’m sorry—we’re at work. This is exactly the kind of inappropriate exchange you didn’t want happening here, right?”

Nathaniel clears his throat.

“Right.”

“Well, if I’m breaking rules I might as well go for broke.”

She leans up and kisses him gently, sweetly—oddly chaste. Her legs swing a few times before she hops off his desk and heads for the door.

“I’ll see you later? Heather’s still out of town for a few days so maybe we can hang at mine?”

“Sure,” he says easily, though still somewhat bewildered. “I’ll come over as soon as I finish up here.”

The corners of her mouth twitch up in a quick smile before she turns and slips out of the room.

* * *

“What the hell are you wearing?” he asks when he steps through her front door later that evening, doing his best not to recoil in horror.

She tilts her chin up and rests her fists proudly on her hips.

“I joined a gym today.”

He takes in the sight of her—brightly patterned leggings, Lycra shirt, joggers, ridiculous head and wrist sweatbands and all—and raises his eyebrows bemusedly. 

“You’ve really never been to the gym in your life, have you?” He drops his keys on her island bench. “It’s one of those women-only gyms, right? Where the girls wear lots of eye makeup and just go to judge each other on the bizarre patterns on their workout clothes and talk about their feelings and eat brunch after?”

“No, but are those a real thing because I think I might be way more interested in that kind of gym than the boring normal gym down the road that I joined.”

He pulls the sweatband over her eyes before he kisses her in greeting and she laughs into his mouth.

“Hey,” she protests, tugging it further down until it’s hanging loose around her neck.

“You’re an idiot,” he informs her. “And don’t think I don’t see where this is going. I know when I’m being manipulated.”

“Oh yeah? Do I manipulate you just the way you like it?”

He pulls a face and shakes his head at her.

“Now you’re just trying too hard.”

She produces a business card and he sighs heavily at her but accepts it.

“So, real talk,” she says. “Here’s the deal. I hack it through a twenty eight day trial membership, you book in for a couch sesh. No lock-in contract necessary—just give it a red hot go. All I’m asking.”

“Fine,” he agrees, taking out his wallet and filing it away. “But only because I strongly suspect you won’t make it through your first session.”

“Oh, I’m gonna gym. I’m gonna gym so hard. Seven days a week, for four weeks. You’re not even going to recognise me at the end of it.”

“Yeah, I really wouldn’t recommend that. What are you doing?” he asks as she crouches down into a position that is surprisingly gymnastic in nature, legs extended haphazardly, arm twisted over her head. “That’s not a real stretch. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

He pulls her gently to her feet and she smiles happily at him, sliding her Spandex-clad arms around his neck.

“Thank you,” she says seriously, and he gives her a small nod of acknowledgement, his fingers coming up to toy with the hem of her shirt.

* * *

It’s a Sunday night and Rebecca is bored; Nathaniel’s attention is otherwise commandeered by the case notes he’s been reviewing approximately the entire time she’s been there, save a brief interlude to order some food. To be fair her presence had been relatively unannounced—plans to see a movie with the girl group had fallen through—and faced with the prospects of either third wheeling to Heather and Hector versus gatecrashing her workaholic boyfriend’s idea of a riveting Sunday evening she’d obviously opted for the latter, figuring in the very least she could entice him into making out through a movie. Thus far his resolve has been frustratingly strong, however, placating her with an absent palm on her knee or caress of her thigh but for the most part impervious to her eyes on him and her pathetic attempts at attention seeking.

She twists into his lap to lie across him on the couch and he tilts his head back and sighs.

“I’m trying to work.”

“It’s Sunday,” she whines. “You’re always working.”

“Well, one of us has to make up for all the time you spend not working,” he says pointedly.

She pulls a face at that.

“That’s not fair. I do lots of work. I work all the time now. I deserve an award for all the work I’ve been doing.”

He raises his eyebrows.

“You mean, for doing your job? What award are you after exactly? An encouragement award? Because everyone knows those don’t count.”

She huffs at him, making sure to elbow him not-so-accidentally in the gut as she begrudgingly moves off him, releasing his lap back to his computer and piles of papers. He eyes her with exasperation before returning his attention to the screen, and she hugs her arms around her knees and picks at the chips in her nail polish.

“Hey, can I like, decorate your apartment?”

“With what?”

“With Christmas, duh.”

He pauses before looking over at her, puzzled.

“You’re Jewish.”

“Yeah, but I’m like a secular Jew that’s obsessed with the spirit of Christmas, so. Hey, on Saturday afternoon let’s go shopping, maybe pick out a tree?” She jabs his thigh with her toes. “I know you probably don’t want to lug a giant pine in here that’s going to make a mess but we could get one of the sad little reject ones that nobody else wants but it makes us feel like good people for taking—like the rescue dog of Christmas trees.”

“Saturday afternoon—uh, I can’t. I have… plans,” Nathaniel says, awkwardly, posture stiffening, and her brow creases in surprise.

“Plans? Okay… with who?”

“Oh, you know. Just people, that I know. No big deal. You wouldn’t know them, so.”

“Why are you being so coy about it?” she asks, her tone teasing but confused. “I don’t understand.”

“You know, I don’t have to tell you everything that’s going on in my life,” he says, a little defensively.

She stares at him for a moment before sitting up straighter and wriggling backwards on the couch, away from him.

“Oh, okay, so we’re just blatantly lying to each other now. Good to know.”

“I wasn’t lying, I was strategically withholding information,” he counters in his lawyer voice. “That’s not the same thing.”

“Also not any better.”

When he stays silent and continues to avoid her gaze she purses her lips and gets up, stepping back into her shoes and grabbing her bag from the counter.

“Where are you going?” Nathaniel asks, rolling his eyes.

“I just remembered I had plans.”

“Okay, real mature,” he retorts. He wets his lips, gesturing broadly. “Fine. I have plans with my parents. Every year they throw a massive holiday cocktail party for family and friends and business associates and I have to be there. It’s stuffy and boring but I have to go. There, are you satisfied?”

She draws her lips into her mouth as she turns his explanation over in her mind, reading between the lines of what he hasn’t said. It’s her turn to avoid his eyes as she looks down at her fingers, fidgeting with her purse.

“Wow. Okay. And you didn’t want me to know, because you don’t want me there. Noted.”

“Rebecca…”

“Yeah, so I’m still just gonna go,” she says, gesturing to the door.

“Rebecca, _wait_.”

He pushes to his feet, finally, discarding the open files to the side. She slows down enough to let him block her exit but the set of her jaw says she’s hurt and isn’t about to make this argument easy for him. He takes her by the arm to turn her gently around, face resigned but apologetic.

“I’m not… ashamed of you, or whatever it is you’re thinking.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “It’s just… My father tries to control and critique _everything_ I do. This is one of the first times in my life that I have something that he isn’t a part of. That he can’t tell me I’m not working hard enough at, or that I’m going to mess up, or that I’ve made the wrong decision about. Because he will, he’ll have opinions—horrible ones, denigrating ones—and I don’t want to hear them and I don’t want you to have to hear them either.” 

Rebecca stubbornly holds on to her petulance a little longer, keeping her gaze pointedly away from his. It’s a valid enough explanation, she supposes, but it doesn’t soften the sting of feeling deliberately excluded.

“You know I can hold my own against condescending old men, right?” she says eventually. “I’ve been doing it most of my life. Sometimes I even enjoy it. And plus—you survived my mom. So I’m sure I can handle your dad.”

He dips his head in acknowledgement, rubbing her arm appeasingly, desperate to placate her.

“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. That was not my intention. And you should come. You should meet my parents.” He says the words as if they physically pain him, then tips his head back and laughs dryly. “Oh, this is going to be great. I… can’t wait.”

* * *

When Rebecca steps out of the bathroom in her cowl-necked oxblood velvet dress Nathaniel swallows audibly around his suddenly very dry mouth, his desire to forego his parents’ party rapidly intensifying for completely new reasons.

“Wow. You look…”

“Christmassy?” she suggests hopefully, sounding almost self-conscious in a way that he isn’t entirely used to from her.

“Incredible,” he counters, slanting his head down towards hers and catching the heady scent of her perfume. “Rebecca, you look beautiful.”

“Oh. Thank you,” she says quietly, as if she’s surprised. “You don’t scrub up so bad yourself.”

He wants to kiss her but isn’t sure it’s a good idea if they want to actually leave the apartment at some point so he settles for resting his hands comfortably on her waist.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this? We could be in for a pretty harrowing ordeal.”

“I mean, it’s drinks and appetisers at your parents’ house, not ‘Nam in 1968 so we’ll probably be fine,” she says. “Not to downplay your concerns because you’ve met my parents—you know I’ve seen some stuff—but I’ve got my fight face on. Let’s do this.”

Rebecca doesn’t miss the way his joints turn white where he grips the steering wheel tighter than what is necessarily required, tension heavily evident in the set of his shoulders. She gets it—a few months earlier their positions had been reversed, after all—and in what she hopes is a strong show of solidarity she reaches across the console to give his leg a reassuring squeeze. He gives her a small smile in return, his right hand leaving the wheel to knot his fingers through hers, bringing them up to graze a kiss across the top of her knuckles.

“So,” she begins casually, “apart from a whole lot of tension between you and your dad, what can one expect from a Plimpton house party?”

“What?”

“Well, your family is like, all rich and ostentatious, right? I bet they know how to throw a rager.”

He glances at her sideways.

“Please don’t use the word ‘rager’ in front of my parents.”

“Come on—you know what I mean. Any fancy Christmas traditions I can look forward to?”

He lets go of her hand to scrub his across his chin, considering.

“Okay. They always have really good eggnog,” he eventually offers with a shrug.

“Eggnog,” Rebecca repeats.

“Yeah. Eggnog. That’s Christmassy, right? The housekeeper makes it every year and it’s… just really good eggnog.”

“Cool,” she accepts. “I’ll take your word for it. I’ve only ever tried eggnog once, back in college, and it was… underwhelming to say the least.”

“Yeah, but that was probably from a carton, right? You can’t compare something that cost two dollars that you drank out of a red Solo cup in your crappy college dorm room to the real, home-made thing. Trust me.” He looks over at her again, eyebrows raised in seriousness. “You’re trying the eggnog.”

She laughs at him, oddly charmed by his insistence.

“Alright, I’ll try your magical eggnog,” she promises. “But it better live up to the hype.”

They settle in to comfortable chatter for the rest of the drive, Rebecca able to tell precisely when they’re almost there by the way the conversation peters out, the indentation in Nathaniel’s brow growing into a permanent furrow. By the time they make it to the front door she thinks he’s definitely looking a little pale, and her hand finds his and squeezes.

He lets out a heavy breath.

“Fight face, remember?” she says with an encouraging smile.

“Yup,” he says. “Let’s do this.”

* * *

“Nathaniel, how nice of you to finally grace us with your presence. Your mother mentioned you were bringing a lady friend—to what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Mother, Father—this is Rebecca.”

“Rebecca Bunch,” she chimes in, extending a handshake. “It’s wonderful to meet you both. You have a lovely home.”

“Rebecca, I’m so glad you could join us this evening,” Nathaniel’s mother says warmly, grasping her hand. “I feel so privileged. Our son rarely introduces us to anyone.”

“Rebecca Bunch _Esquire_?” his father interrupts to query, and she can feel Nathaniel tense beside her.

“And here we go,” he mutters. “Not even two minutes in the door.”

“ _Mumbling isn’t becoming_ , Nathaniel.”

“Mm-hmm, that’s me—right, I guess in a way I kind of work for you, huh?” Rebecca interjects cheerily. “I’m so sorry I missed you when you dropped in last time you were in town. I was out of the office most of that week.”

She feels like mentioning her then-preoccupation with planning her now-aborted wedding to Josh Chan is probably unnecessary detail.

“Yes, out of office time seems to be somewhat of a perturbing norm out at the West Covina branch. Not that the goings on inside the office are sounding any less concerning at this point.”

“We are not doing this now,” Nathaniel says curtly before his father can speak again, his mother placing a hand on the senior Plimpton’s shoulder in similar warning. “Mom’s organised a really nice party and I’m not going to ruin it by arguing with you, so excuse me.” He presses his palm into the small of Rebecca’s back, steering her aside. “C’mon, let’s get you a drink. What would you like? Champagne? A martini?”

“Nathaniel…”

“I don’t really want to talk about it right now. Please, can we just have a drink?”

She dips her head in assent.

“Whatever you’re having.”

“Well, I was kind of thinking some obscenely expensive scotch.”

“Try me. I can hold my liquor.”

He makes a humming noise that suggests he’s not convinced but procures her a glass nonetheless. She turns her head to the side to mask the rearrangement of her features upon trying it, widening her eyes and nodding at him in feigned approval once the burning feeling lessens. Obviously distracted, Nathaniel doesn’t seem to notice, focusing instead on downing his own drink with a determined frown.

After exchanging brief pleasantries with several stuffy looking middle-aged men Rebecca assumes to be friends of his father he indicates to her with his empty glass.

“Would you be terribly opposed to driving home? I kind of feel like I’m gonna need a few more of these.”

“Oh, okay,” she says, surprised, because while she’s seen him drink before it’s never been with particular purpose. She can’t help but think of the last time a date of hers committed himself to excessive consumption of alcohol at a social event and feels an uninvited pang of disappointment in her chest. “I mean, sure. I can drive. Go for it. Whatever you need.”

She hands him her own since she’s only really sipped at it whilst wincing anyway.

“Just so you know, I’m not above lying,” she informs him. “I mean, I told Audra Levine we were engaged and that was just out of an unfounded need to compete—I can tell people I’m a pastry chef if it saves you from a night of judgy Republican stares.”

“Do you know a lot about being a pastry chef?”

“I eat a lot of pastries,” she shrugs.

* *

There’s a break in the mingling when Rebecca pauses, her gaze lingering on the back of a leggy blonde standing near the refreshments table they just vacated. When Nathaniel realises what she’s staring at he shifts on his feet, looking down at her, uncomfortable.

“I should have warned you—”

“It’s fine,” Rebecca interrupts, shaking her head. “I’m not… threatened.” She gestures breezily to her body with a flourish. “I know what a catch I am. You’re not doing any better than this.”

She smirks at him and he smiles hesitantly in response.

“Honestly. We can go say hi if you want,” she insists. “I promise won’t bite.”

He opens his mouth to list all the reasons he thinks that isn’t a great idea but finds himself distracted by somebody else entirely; Rebecca raises her eyebrows at the quiet noise of disgust he makes as he tracks the movement of a couple across the room, hands clenching at his sides.

“God, I _hate_ that guy.”

“You know him?”

“Bryce Harrington. We were at Stanford at the same time. Undergrad and law school. Our families are old friends so we kind of grew up in the same circles. Our fathers play golf together. There may have been a bit of… competition between us.”

“Oh my god,” Rebecca says, blinking dramatically.

“What?”

“Oh my god. He’s your Audra Levine. You have your own Audra Levine. This is so amazing, this is so good. I can’t wait to meet him and find out everything about him.” She curls into his side, splaying a hand on his chest in excitement. “Do you want to pretend we’re engaged again? Is he exactly like you? Is he a pod person?”

“You think I’m a pod person?”

“No, he’s a pod person of you. Keep up.”

“You know, I’m really trying.”

“What are you waiting for? Are we not going over? I’m going over.”

“Rebecca—”

It’s too late to protest because she’s already flounced over, shoulders set with purpose and the sassy swing of her hips making Nathaniel’s eyes flutter shut in a preemptive cringe. She makes a show of surveying the tray of champagne glasses nearby before selecting one, making an offhand comment to the woman of the pair, throwing her head back in a laugh at the response she receives. Nathaniel joins her reluctantly, summoning a polite smile when his presence is noted.

“Well, well, well—if it isn’t Prince Plimpton himself,” the other man says jovially upon recognition, slapping Nathaniel on the back. “Good to see you, old friend. It’s been awhile.”

“Bryce,” Nathaniel acknowledges levelly.

“This is my fiancée, Eleanor. Nathaniel, you may remember her from our days at Stanford. She’s a CPA now.”

Rebecca arches a questioning eyebrow at Nathaniel as she winds her arm around his and he makes a _don’t_ motion with his hand, shaking his head near imperceptibly.

“We’ve met. Eleanor, it’s nice to see you again.”

“Likewise, Nathaniel. You’re doing well?”

“Rebecca,” Rebecca offers, making a surprised noise when her proffered handshake is hijacked into a genial kiss on the back of her hand.

“Pardon me for the observation Rebecca,” Bryce says smoothly as he releases her, looking her up and down, “but you are not the kind of girl I’m used to seeing on this guy’s arm. Don’t get me wrong—it’s refreshing. But also very intriguing. What line of work are you in?”

“Oh, I’m a pastry chef. I cook pastries for a living. It’s very rewarding.”

Nathaniel clears his throat and gives her a stern look.

“Please ignore her; she has a very confusing sense of humour. Rebecca is a real estate lawyer. Harvard and Yale.”

“Fascinating. My curiosity continues to grow. What firm are you with?”

“Well,” she begins, hesitating, “my most prominent work was probably with Sampson and Saunders, in New York? But then I decided I needed a lifestyle change and headed for the West Coast, so, here I am.”

“Sampson and Saunders – I’m familiar, very impressive,” Bryce says. “Well, if you’re planning on still putting up with this one in June you’ll have to come to the wedding. Nate, you’re already on the list of course—I’m sure my mom will have told your mom all about it.”

“Another summer wedding in the Hamptons—great, can’t wait,” Nathaniel answers with false enthusiasm as he downs a particularly large mouthful of his drink.

“Well there’s no need to sound so excited, Nathaniel,” Eleanor says with amusement.

“But enough about us,” Bryce says. “How’s the small town life been treating you? Where is it daddy shipped you off to again? Glendora?”

Nathaniel sets his jaw, nostrils flaring.

“That’s not—”

“West Covina,” Rebecca jumps in to correct with a breezy smile. “It’s the thirteenth most populous city in LA County, actually, and incidentally the place where dreams live.”

Bryce lets out a laugh that suggests he isn’t entirely sure how to take Rebecca but he’s charmed by her none the less.

“Right,” he says, eyes crinkling. “West Covina. I didn’t know the bit about the dreams, though—my bad. I was waiting for the invitation to come check out your new digs but it never arrived. Why the holding out on me, old sport?”

“Oh, you know me—I’m not one to make a fuss,” Nathaniel says tersely, hand thrust deep in his pocket.

“So you three all went to Stanford together, huh?” Rebecca asks in an attempt to steer the conversation away from the needling making Nathaniel so prickly. “There’s got to be some wild stories there, right?” She doesn’t miss the fleeting moment of eye contact between Nathaniel and Eleanor, and files that particular piece of information away for later. She nudges him with her shoulder. “Got anything embarrassing for me about this one? I’ll take ‘em all.”

Bryce smirks as Nathaniel rolls his eyes and turns his head away in indignation.

“How much time do you have?”

* * *

“So who’s winning, here? It’s him, right? Has it always been him or is this a recent power shift? When did it happen? Is it all because he got a better LSAT score than you?”

“You’re not going to trick me into telling you my LSAT score.”

“You say that like I couldn’t find out on my own if I really wanted to,” she says, narrowing her eyes mischievously. 

“Could you maybe try looking a little less pleased with yourself?”

Rebecca grins, unabashedly delighted with her new arsenal of anecdotes about Nathaniel’s college days.

“What’s the matter, Plimpton? Worried about what I’m going to do with all this new information I’ve gleaned about you?”

“I’m worried about what I get myself into just by letting you talk to people. You just signed us up to play couples tennis with my worst enemy.”

“The word you’re looking for is frenemy—and yeah, that’s not happening. Tennis is basically a glorified version of ping pong, and I had this whole thing where I was really bad at it—I’m not super coordinated, it turns out—and I just don’t see myself revisiting that particular brand of humiliation like, ever, so even though I’m tickled by the mere idea of you in preppy white tennis shorts I’m going to need you to get us out of that. Thaaanks.” She steps closer to him under the guise of smoothing out his collar. “So… do you want to talk about the fact that you’ve totally banged that guy’s fiancée?”

Nathaniel nearly chokes on his scotch.

“Excuse me?”

“What was it, a late night in the library during midterms? A few too many wine coolers and an unattended bedroom at a keg party? Don’t try and lie to me and my lady intuition – I know that vibe.” 

He stares at her.

“We were both working on the student paper,” he concedes eventually with a petulant shrug, confused by her jovial, rather than accusing, tone.

“Ooh, nerdy. And you managed to bury the lede with your little frat boy friend over there? If it were me, I’d be bringing that up at every available opportunity to lord it over him, but whatever. Only now I’m saying that, that would be kind of disrespectful to Eleanor. Huh. It doesn’t seem so bad when I do it. If I were to do it. Which I totally don’t. But—double standards are weird, right?”

Nathaniel eyes her bemusedly.

“It’s never really come up—am I going to be punished for this later?” he asks. “Because you’re being weirdly calm and I can’t tell if you’re secretly waiting to lay into me for having the audacity to be in the same room as two girls I’ve previously slept with.”

“Hey, buddy, no judgement here. If we had a fight every time you’ve been in the same room as someone I’ve done the nasty with we’d have a serious problem,” she deadpans. He frowns deeply at her as she pats him reassuringly on the shoulder. “Kidding. But as you’ve mentioned before I really don’t think it would be a good idea for us to compare our no doubt vast but distinguished sexual histories, like, ever, so. Ooh—is that the eggnog?” 

She encircles his arm with hers and is in the process of steering him over to the dessert table when they’re intercepted by Nathaniel’s father, the senior Plimpton ignoring Rebecca in favour of glowering at his son after a dismissive cursory glance.

“Nathaniel, I’d like a word.”

Nathaniel stiffens and opens his mouth, presumably to protest, but when his father raises his eyebrows challengingly no words come out and Rebecca can practically feel the defeat coming off him in waves as he reluctantly disentangles himself from her. His hand skims her waist apologetically as he lets go.

“I’ll be back,” he says, before thrusting his hands in his pockets and following his father obediently out of the room.

Rebecca sighs, surveying the partygoers for anybody that looks remotely worth suffering through smalltalk with and comes up empty; there’s also the fact her eyes won’t stop slipping back towards the doorway Nathaniel and his dad just disappeared through, and the impulse to intervene itches insistently in her fingertips. 

She doesn’t have to move far into the hallway to hear the sound of voices drifting from the ajar door to what she assumes is Nathaniel Senior’s study; she wrings her fingers and steps tentatively closer, torn between feeling guilty for prying and the overwhelming urge to overhear.

“—going to say, and that you think this reflects badly on you, somehow—”

“An attorney at your firm, son? Really? Couldn’t you have found an assistant to fool around with instead? Not that the lapse in judgement would have been any less abysmal, but if you’re going to dip your pen in the company ink, at least secretaries are expendable!”

“You’re right. It is stupid, and reckless, and unprofessional. It’s all of those things. But you know what? I don’t care. I don’t care because she makes me happy. Because I was miserable, dad. Did you know that? Because I didn’t. I was miserable and I didn’t even know it until I met her because we don’t have feelings and we don’t talk about feelings in this house but _I don’t live here anymore_.”

There’s a beat of silence and Rebecca can visualise the pause all too well; she’s been here before, after all, with her mother and certainly too many times to count. 

Nathaniel’s voice is softer when he speaks again and she has to strain to listen.

“It’s not like I planned for any of this to happen.”

“The plan was Stanford. The plan was working your way up through this company and learning the ropes. The _plan_ was preparing you to lead—and this is how you repay me? Your entire life I’ve done nothing but set you up to succeed and time and time again you seem determined to derail that. Happiness didn’t keep the nice roof over this family’s head all these years. Happiness doesn’t earn you respect. Doesn’t make you a man. But by all means, Nathaniel—squander your potential, settle down in West Covina, marry your nice dumpy Jewish girl. Whatever makes you _happy,_ ” he sneers.

Rebecca’s stomach twists, roiling, and the conversation is apparently over because the door swings unceremoniously open, Nathaniel Senior striding out of the office with a sharp tug on his dinner jacket. He stops in his tracks when he sees her standing in the middle of the hallway, her nostrils flared and chin tilted defiantly upward.

She doesn’t make a move to get out of his way so for a long time they only stare.

After what seems like an age Nathaniel’s father takes a step backward, towards the wall, and indicates that she is free to pass. She holds her glare a beat longer before stalking past him into the study without a backwards glance.

Nathaniel’s pulse thuds loudly in his ears and his chest feels too tight, fingers curling into anxious fists at his sides as he tries to breathe through it. 

“Hey, that’s it, just breathe.”

Rebecca’s voice cuts through the haze and then he can feel her hands on him, soothing him, grounding him, and suddenly his vision sharpens back into focus and his lungs fill obediently with air. She pulls his head down to press their foreheads together.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, tracing slow circles on his back beneath his jacket. “You tried to tell me how horrible me being here would be for you and I didn’t listen. I guess I’m not a magical parent charmer after all. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t—don’t apologise, this is all on him. I’m sorry if you had to hear any of that. And I know it might have sounded like it, but none of that was actually about you. It was all about me.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it. Sticks and stones,” she insists, pulling back to smile at him. “I mean, that was pretty fucking brutal, even by Naomi Bunch standards. But you and I, we’re good.”

His arm tightens around her shoulders and she leans back into him, tucking her face into his neck. The tension doesn’t go away entirely but his posture relaxes somewhat as he buries into her hair, sighing, and Rebecca lets herself go loose, eyes closing as she concentrates on keeping her breathing even and feels him do the same. 

“You never got your eggnog,” Nathaniel realises after a few minutes, deflated. 

“It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”

“No, it’s not. Come on.”

He leads her back down the hallway and through the house to the kitchen; the benches are cluttered with an array of various impressive looking dishes but Nathaniel makes a beeline for the fridge, rummaging around until he produces a tall pitcher, shutting the door gently with his hip while reaching into the cupboards for a mug. He fills it with the eggnog and passes it to her.

“I think it’s supposed to have, I don’t know, cinnamon or something sprinkled on top? Nutmeg?” He wiggles his fingers in the direction of her mug and shakes his head, glancing at the multitude of drawers. “I don’t know where—”

“It’s fine,” she laughs, taking the cup and cradling it in both hands. She takes a long sip and groans in approval. “Mmm. Yeah, okay—this is good. This entire night has now been officially worth it.” She watches him watch her drink and shifts on her feet, self conscious. “Aren’t you going to have any?”

He waves his hand dismissively.

“You go ahead.” At her raised eyebrows he adds, “There’s a lot of calories, in eggnog, so—”

“Okay, nuh-uh,” she says, cutting him off. “First of all, I heard the way you spoke about this stuff, and you love it, so you not having any is stupid. And second of all, it’s Christmas, so. ’Tis the season to indulge, so you can indulge your girlfriend and have a damn glass of eggnog with her. Go on. Get yourself a mug. I’m waiting.”

He stares at her a moment and she doesn’t falter, jutting her chin at him to convey she means business. He rolls his eyes and does as he’s told, half-filling a mug and holding it up to clink it dutifully against hers but Rebecca has other plans, looping her arm around his and back towards her mouth, widening her eyes at him pointedly as she drinks until he hesitantly follows suit, earning himself a delighted smile in response to his albeit reluctant cooperation.

There’s a foamy film of eggnog on his top lip when he’s done and she leans up to kiss it off him.

“Merry Christmas, Perfect Plimpton,” she says quietly when she pulls back.

“Huh. I kind of feel like in light of recent exchanges with my father that title has probably been officially revoked.”

“Mediocre Plimpton? Slightly above average Plimpton? It needs the alliteration, right?” she says off his unimpressed look. “Hmm. Pedestrian Plimpton. Pompous Plimpton. Preppy Plimpton.”

“Okay, stop.”

“Pouty Plimpton,” she continues, pinching his scowling cheeks. “Okay. So maybe you’re not perfect. But you’re perfectly acceptable to me. Most of the time, anyway.” She rubs her nose against his then makes a face. “Although I do feel like my blood alcohol just went up five points just from kissing you. Your breath smells like it’s been aged in oak for five years.”

He licks his lips.

“Yeah, I’m a little buzzed.”

“So whaddya say we blow this popsicle stand? And please tell me there’s a way we can sneak out of here without having to impart yuletide wishes to all those exhausting people you’ve already had confrontations with because I don’t want to kill my eggnog high.”

“You should be able to slip out through the side entrance without encountering anybody too unpleasant,” a quiet, kind voice says from the doorway, and they straighten up in surprise.

“Mother,” Nathaniel says, apologetically. “We were just—”

“Leaving, before your father could admonish you again? I don’t blame you. Nathaniel, I’m sorry he insisted on making a scene tonight. He seems to have forgotten his manners, and it wasn’t fair on you or Rebecca. I meant it when I said it was lovely to meet you. You two make a very beautiful couple, and I’m glad you came.”

Rebecca flushes and gives a small smile. 

“It was really lovely to meet you too. And certain topics of conversation aside, this was a really nice party.” She gestures with her cup. “The eggnog was amazing. Way better than the stuff from the carton.”

Nathaniel lets out a laugh and moves away from her side to kiss his mother on the cheek in farewell but at the last second recalls Rebecca’s earlier comment and thinks better of it, opting instead for a hug after discretely checking his breath.

“Merry Christmas, Mom,” he says sincerely. “Tell Pops I said—well, I guess tell Pops we’re gone.”

“Merry Christmas, Nathaniel.”

He steers her out the way his mother suggested, the two of them flattening comically against the wall in the hallway at the sound of footsteps until the prospect of crossing paths with another person passes. Rebecca laughs, doubling over and sliding down the wall as it escalates into a cackle that completely negates their attempt at stealth, her hand grabbing at his with every intention to take him down with her until he tugs her upwards and into him amusedly.

“Hey, is that mistletoe?” she asks when she recovers, playing dumb and pointing to the decorations hanging over the doorway.

“Not remotely,” Nathaniel refutes, pressing her back into the wall and kissing her anyway.

His hands start to roam her waist and back a little ardently, and she can feel with amusement his fingertips flexing against the smooth pile of the fabric.

“Boy, real big fan of the dress, aren’t you?”

“I’ll take the person wearing it too,” he shrugs. “I’m assuming it’s a package deal.”

“So listen, I know I agreed to drive and all, but technically I’ve still had a few and your sports car kind of scares me because I drive stick like a ninety year old grandmother, so how would you feel about making an Uber driver super uncomfortable and like, making out on the back seat the whole way home?”

“Uh-huh,” he agrees immediately, lips finding their way back to hers, and Rebecca grunts happily and fishes distractedly for her phone.

* * *

The next morning Nathaniel wakes before Rebecca, feeling groggy and a little startlingly overwhelmed with tenderness for the sleep-rumpled creature snoring obliviously into the pillow beside him. 

There’s an empty champagne bottle still on the table, the two glasses next to it—one lightly smeared with the sultry deep red of Rebecca’s lipstick that he’s sure has ended up a lot of other places, too—sending him back to the night before when they’d stumbled laughing in the door, determined to prolong the heady buzz that had kept the weight of his father’s disappointment at bay, focused firmly instead on the soft, gentle sounds she made as he’d hiked that damn dress that had unravelled him the minute he’d seen her in it up around her waist, pressing desperately into her, unable to wait a second longer. 

The colour of her dress and her smokey, smouldering eyes had taken him back to the first time she’d let him have her like this; how he’d known even then that this wasn’t going to be a one-time thing, that this wasn’t him getting her out of his system at all but more like opening the gates and letting her pour white-hot into his synapses like molten lava. Months later and she still has the ability to send him reeling—it had been drunken but deliberate, her crisscrossed ankles urging him insistently on and her wine-coloured nails carving encouragements into his skin with the perfect delicious sting. When she’d leant back to look at him, arms anchoring her to his neck and her swollen bottom lip dragging enticingly through her teeth, he’d felt something akin to wistful, stubborn poetry effervescing up inside of him like the champagne he could still taste in her mouth.

He feels that same clench in his gut now at all the things he wants to tell her but still hasn't managed find the words for; about how she so often makes him feel like the ground’s been ripped out from underneath him but safe at the same time, how she drowns out the part of him that’s never felt good enough but makes him want to be better, too.

She mumbles nonsensically in her sleep and he strokes back the matted lock of her hair that’s dancing across her mascara-smudged cheek with every exhalation before reaching for his wallet on the nightstand and thumbing through it for the card she gave him, turning it over and over in his fingers in thought.

* * *

“Can’t I at least have a clue?”

He doesn’t even bother opening his eyes—he can feel how close her face is to his, her breath warm on his cheek. His lack of a response predictably incites her, landing him an insistent press of her knee to his stomach and a pointed jab of her big toe to his shin. He frowns, lids still firmly shut, and takes her knee cap in his hand, sliding his palm around to the back of her knee to hitch it over his hip instead. When she hooks it there obediently he lets go in favour of wrapping his arm around her shoulders, drawing her completely against him.

“Incorrigible,” he tells her, before kissing her good morning.

Finally he blinks awake to look at her, her wide eyes boring expectantly into his as she grazes the soft trail of hair below his navel with her fingernails. 

“Okay, maybe just one.”

She grins triumphantly, somehow managing to wriggling even closer to him in anticipation. 

His voice is low and thick when he speaks, still rough from sleep, and he brings his hand up to tease through her dark curls. 

“In the interest of your hair: we’re foregoing the helicopter this time.”

“That’s not a clue,” she protests. 

“Sure it is.”

“That’s… like… the inverse of a clue.” She throws her hands up dramatically, hitting him in the chest. “That’s like saying we’re not going to Paris.”

He raises his eyebrows at her.

“We’re also not going to Paris. That’s two clues.”

“Can I have a third clue? One that actually discloses something of value?”

“ _Three_ clues?” he scoffs. “Please. I’m not a genie.”

“You are the literal worst,” she tells him, seriously, “and I’m considering going on strike. Yeah. I’m not even going to put on that dress you bought me. Sweatpants and ratty old Harvard t-shirt it is.”

“I mean, that’s fine by me. But you went to all that trouble of giving me _very_ specific sizing information—it kind of seems like a waste. Besides—what happened to you loving surprises?”

She bites down on her lip, apparently considering that, and squeezes affectionately at his shoulder.

“I do love surprises,” she confesses, quietly. “I’m also just nosy and impatient and terrible and I want to know everything that you’re planning and thinking and doing all the time.”

He reaches forward to steal a quick kiss before rolling out of her bed.

“I’ll pick you up at eight,” he says as he’s pulling on his pants. “In sweats if I have to. But I hope you go with the dress. It was kind of expensive.”

She rolls lazily onto her back to watch him leave.

“Yeah, well—so were my sweats. They say ‘juicy’ on the ass and everything.”

* * *

As charmed as she is by his desire to take her out somewhere nice and spoil her for New Year’s Eve, his lack of forthcomingness on the details have left her curiosity infuriatingly piqued. Her confusion isn’t lessened any when he helps her out of the limousine, careful to make sure she doesn’t trip on the length of her dress.

“Tar Pits?” she reads aloud. “Wow, I am so confused right now, but also excited. But also slightly concerned you’ve brought me here to murder me. I mean you’ve really been playing the long con if that’s what you’ve been leading up to all this time but people generally don’t see it coming, right? I don’t actually think you’d murder me. But then again you did once basically try to have a man killed for me so it’s not like it would be completely out of left field. I don’t know. I’m rambling. Please say something so I’ll stop.”

“Are you done?” he asks, amused.

“I think so yeah.”

They pause to peer in at the tar pits along the way but there’s not much to see in the dim glow of the street lamps, so he steers her up the path towards the central illuminated building. She stops him before they ascend the stairs, brow knotting in seriousness.

“Hey, you know I don’t need any of this, right? You don’t have to woo me with big fancy expensive romantic gestures.”

“Oh, you think this is for you?” Nathaniel asks, feigning surprise. He forces a wince. “Awkward. No. I just really wanted to come here. You’re lucky to be invited. George put in a really solid case for himself.”

She smiles and winds herself around his arm, resting her head against his shoulder.

“I mean, it’s perfect and I love it and you should absolutely ignore me and keep doing them occasionally because my inner twelve year old is all about your flair for the dramatic. But I’m just saying. I’d probably put out anyway.”

He laughs.

“Good to know.”

They enter what turns out to be a museum, her obvious excitement growing the further they move into the foyer. There’s a young man waiting at the ticket counter, and Nathaniel motions for her to wait before stepping up to talk to him in a hushed tone. He eventually indicates for them to continue on down the hall, and when Nathaniel returns to her side Rebecca flings her arm back to smack him in the chest.

“You’re making someone work New Year’s Eve?”

“Hey,” he protests, rubbing the area where she just hit him. “He is getting _very_ generous overtime right now. I don’t think he’s complaining.”

She narrows her eyes at him but accepts the assurance of acceptable reimbursement.

“So how many other amazing places do you have after-hours access to? Do you have an entire underground network of night guards on your payroll?”

“Hey, you gotta let me keep a couple of secrets up my sleeve.”

They pass by a looming skeleton of what is terrifyingly labelled as a giant sloth and Rebecca practically skips over to the first exhibit station, mouth excitedly agape and hand pressed dramatically to her collarbone as she grabs onto the metal pole steeped in tar and tugs on it with all the theatrical gusto of someone unsuccessfully attempting to pull Excalibur from the stone.

“Are you telling me this date is going to be interactive _and_ educational? Shut up.” 

His answering smile is entirely too smug.

* * *

“You know, all this reminds me that you still owe me a trip to the zoo,” she says, peering up at a looming pair of mastodon tusks.

“Well this is kind of like a zoo, right? Only all the animals died thousands of years ago. It also smells equally not-great.” 

They make their way around the maze of impressively lit fossils, Rebecca insisting on absorbing every single word of information presented alongside them. Nathaniel for the most part is content just to watch her drinking it all in—she announces all the interesting parts with an excited grab at his jacket, anyway—endlessly charmed by the contradiction of her in a formal gown and heels, prancing from placard to placard like a small child.

“So,” he begins, clearing his throat. “Any New Years resolutions?”

“Yeah, I need to cancel my gym membership. Oh, don’t look so sanctimonious,” she accuses, hitting him with her clutch. “It auto-renewed after the trial and that monthly fee is expensive! Anyway, what about you? Planning any short-term life improvements?”

“Nope,” he says, smiling at her. “Life’s pretty good how it is at the moment.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

He leans down to kiss her and she lets him, briefly, before pushing back at him with a hand on his chest.

“Dude,” she says, sotto voce, with a subtle jerk of her head, “not in front of the twelve thousand year old fossils.”

He rolls his eyes.

“I’m sure the twelve thousand year old fossils have seen worse.”

They round a corner and he leads her out through a glass door into a garden; there’s the sound of running water and a beautiful string of lights overhead and at the centre, a table set for two, ice bucket complete with champagne chilling beside it. Rebecca stops in her tracks, incredulous.

“Nathaniel,” she says, clearly impressed, and he can’t help but roll his neck, pleased. She turns to him, hands smoothing up over his shirt and to his shoulders, looping her arms around him.“This is… wow. I don’t know what to say.”

“If you think this is good, wait until you see what I have planned for after dinner,” he murmurs.

“Oh yeah?” she asks silkily, looking up at him through her lashes.

“Uh-huh. Afterwards…” He leans in closer to her ear, dropping his voice even lower, making her shiver. “I’ll let you pick anything you want from the gift shop.”

She blinks, and then body shakes against his with delighted laughter.

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

He tilts his head at her.

“Only the ones that still sleep with stuffed animals. I know my target audience.”

She grins. She’s pretty sure she saw a giant fluffy mammoth on her way in.

* * *

Rebecca eyes Nathaniel pulling on his running shorts from the cocoon of blankets she’d contentedly claimed for herself the moment he’d slipped from between the sheets the next morning, thoughtful. When the bed dips under his weight she stretches, groaning, before abandoning her stockpile in favour of sneaking up behind him and insinuating her body determinedly around his.

“Hi,” she sighs happily into his neck, inhaling.

“Good morning.”

He twists his head to the side to lean into her and she tightens her arms around his shoulders greedily in response, suddenly despondent at the idea of him leaving. 

“So I was thinking.”

“Always worrisome,” he says.

She smacks his chest lightly and frowns. Her facade of irritation barely lasts five seconds before she’s curling back into him, nuzzling her cheek against the side of his freshly shaven face. 

“I was thinking… that I’d come running with you today.”

He blinks in confusion for a moment before drawing away from her to eye her skeptically.

“ _You_ want to come running,” he states slowly, just to clarify. When the punchline never comes he asks, “Who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend?’

“New year, new me,” she says with gusto. “Whaddya say?”

“I say, your idea of exercise is the two minute walk from the parking lot to the office building after which you have to catch your breath in the elevator,” he says with a pointed look as he bends down to tie his shoes.

“Hey, that’s not true. Well—the elevator comment is somewhat true. But that’s not my idea of exercise.” She drops her voice and tilts her head as she leans closer to him, gaze flicking to his mouth. “My idea of exercise is all the acrobatic sex we have, after which I’m definitely not the only one that has to catch their breath. You know that.”

He swallows and rolls his eyes away from her.

“Are you trying to seduce me into taking you running with me, or into staying in bed with you? Your argument lacks clarity.”

“Depends. Are either of those two outcomes likely?”

He pretends to seriously consider.

“You can come running with me on one condition,” he says eventually. “You’re not wearing that ridiculous outfit you bought for the gym membership you never used.”

“Excuse me, I used it. I went twice!”

“Was one of those times the day you signed up?”

“Maybe,” she says, haughtily.

“Doesn’t count. And the second time you didn’t even break a sweat.”

“It’s hard to focus on the overhead TV if you have the treadmill set too fast,” she protests on a whine. “They were playing reruns of _Golden Girls._ You know how I feel about about female friendships.”

Nathaniel grabs his overnight bag from the foot of her bed and fishes for his drink bottle before looking at her expectantly.

“Well? Are you coming?”

She clambers off the bed with an excited squeak, pecking him quickly on the mouth.

“Just give me a second, okay? I gotta do something about… all this,” she says, making a show of squishing her breasts up in both hands, earning herself an embarrassed groan from Nathaniel.

“I’m going to regret this, I can tell.”

* * *

“Oh—you’re going to put your little ear bud thingies in?” Rebecca asks once they’re at the park, trying not to sound disappointed.

Nathaniel opens his mouth but hesitates, clearly unsure what the right answer is.

“Well, yeah. I usually listen to music. But I, uh, guess I don’t have to? If you don’t want me to?”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. I just thought… you know, we’re doing something together, we’re bonding, we’ll talk about our hopes and dreams…”

She tips her shoulders from side as she speaks and makes a rolling gesture with her hands; Nathaniel cocks his head at her and scrunches up his mouth.

“I mean, if you’re running, it’s kind of hard to talk, so.”

“Oh. Right. Of course.”

“Probably not the best time to discuss our hopes and dreams. If at all,” he adds jokingly, his laugh awkward.

“I didn’t—I didn’t know I was supposed to bring ear buds,” Rebecca says, suddenly dejected. 

“It wasn’t—” He stops himself, taking a deep breath. He jabs at his phone through the plastic on his armband, exiting his playlist. “You know what? It’s fine. I don’t need them. We can do a light jog, ease you into it, maybe have a chat at the same if it works. Let’s do it.”

“Yeah?”

It’s unfair how charming she looks, soft uncertain smile and slightly impractical outfit and all as she rocks on her feet in front of him. 

“Yeah. Sure.”

They don’t even make it to an attempt at a discussion because Rebecca manages to stick it out probably a hundred yards before she slows to a stop, hands on her knees as she leans forward to catch her breath; despite her early morning delusions it turns out she’s still not in particularly great shape, and combined with the fact that even her most supportive bra isn’t doing much to help with the bounce her initial burst of enthusiasm quickly begins to wane. It takes a moment for Nathaniel to realise he’s lost her but when he does he circles back, pulling his lips into his mouth in an attempt to fight the smirk he knows will only irritate her.

“Yeah, so I’m just going to take a little break,” she says dismissively, waving him on. “You go ahead, I’ll catch up.”

“You’ll catch up,” he repeats, dubious, earning himself a glare. “Really.”

“Uh-huh. I just—I just got a little something in my shoe, is all,” she bluffs, fooling exactly no one as she bends down to fiddle with her laces.

“Do you want the keys to the car?” he asks, ignoring her attempt, his tone edging infuriatingly towards flat-out condescension.

“No,” she snaps. “I said I was coming running with you and I said I’d catch up and that’s what I’m going to do, so stop, like, criticising me and trying to talk me out of it and just run already. God, you’re the one that’s always bugging me to get in shape, so maybe, like, stop being so neggy when I’m just trying to make an effort.”

Nathaniel clenches his jaw but he knows better than to poke back at her when she turns petulant like this.

“Fine,” he says, fishing in his pocket for his ear buds and flashing her a mocking smile at the sneer she throws in his direction watching him shove them pointedly in.

“Yeah, well, _fine,”_ she bites back at him.

“I can’t hear you,” he mouths, gesturing to his ears, jogging briefly on the spot before taking off down the path away from her, leaving alone on the sidewalk to sulk.

* * *

“This is nice,” Paula says, snapping a muesli bar in half and offering half to Rebecca.

“So nice,” she agrees, acknowledging Nathaniel with a shrug as he passes them for the third time. “Look at us—outside, stretching our limbs, connecting with nature. Watching my sweaty, able-bodied boyfriend do all the work.”

“Ew,” Paula protests. “Still my boss.”

“No but seriously, thanks for meeting me. Deciding to go for a run is probably the worst idea I’ve had since thought I could put off doing laundry another week by throwing my underwear into the dishwasher with the breakfast dishes. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised Nathaniel went along with it,” Paula says, pulling a face at the preceding comment but choosing not to touch on that particular tidbit. “I would have taken your temperature and sent you back to bed.”

“To be fair, he kind of did try that. It turns out I can be very stubborn sometimes.”

“No? Really?” Paula mocks. “I haven’t noticed that about you at all.”

* * *

“So let me get this straight,” Nathaniel begins, rinsing out his drink bottle in her sink. “You begged me to let you come running with me and, when I graciously caved in and let you, you gave up after five minutes and ditched me for Paula. And donuts,” he adds, tilting his head. “You went _straight_ from running to donuts. Incredible.”

She tosses a scowl at him over her shoulder as she heads towards the passageway to check for signs of Heather before offhandedly discarding her t-shirt, pressing gingerly at her chest. Nathaniel tracks the trajectory of the tee with his eyes, exasperatedly throwing his hand up at her when it lands in a heap in the middle of the floor. She pokes out her tongue and shrugs at him, daring him to say something about it. 

He doesn’t take the bait.

“Looks like we can cross jogging off your list along with the gym, hmm?” He ignores her show of surliness as she crosses her arms, stepping forward into her personal space and tilting his head with a smug smile, dropping to a murmur. “I do, however, recall something about an alternate, preferred workout of yours.”

“Gross, you’re all sweaty,” she complains as he moves closer, her tone and the way her gaze lingers over the length of his body belying her words.

He smirks at her, eyebrows raised. 

“How about I catch you up?”

She stares at him for a beat, wishing she could do a more convincing job of pretending he hasn’t already won.

“ _God_ , why does that work for me.”

She pulls a disgusted face as she launches herself at him.

(A lot more than her shirt ends up on the floor.)


	5. v.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. So this sucker's finally done - and what a struggle it's been. This chapter ended up impossibly long so I've decided to break up a little, with an epilogue of sorts still to come. The upside is it's already finished so it won't take me two months to post this time. Thank you to everyone that's been along for the ride so far!

Thirty seven hours.

It’s kind of admirable that she even made it that long, Rebecca muses, agitatedly hammering the refresh button on her browser in the hopes that an acceptable distraction will magically appear on her Facebook feed and keep her from going quietly insane. Social media fails to do her the solid, however, and she heaves a frustrated sigh, slamming her MacBook shut and rolling off her stomach and the side of the bed to slip into her shoes.

Sleeping alone so far had been a surprising non-issue; though they spent most nights together it wasn’t entirely uncommon for them to bunk in their respective beds, and whilst cosy bedtime cuddles—as well as any potential preceding activities—were always a welcome wind-down to her day, there was still an inherent delight in being able to sprawl out obnoxiously across the mattress, limbs akimbo, taking up as much space as humanly possible without the inevitable protesting sighs of her bedmate. 

What she hadn’t been prepared for was the foreign stretch of time without simply seeing his stupid face—any time they spent apart was generally negated by the fact they shared an office building; there’d been stretches of stubborn days where they’d barely exchanged words but his desk always lingered in her periphery, a simple twist of vertebrae away, his features a reassuring recurring fixture in her day, regardless of smirk, smile or scowl. Yesterday, however, the room had been unprecedentedly empty, and she knows Paula hadn’t missed the occasional sidelong glance she’d sent in its direction.

She’s halfway to the front door, swiping her keys off the kitchen counter as she passes before Heather startles her, calling out from her comfortable position on the couch, legs propped up on the arm and a book in hand.

“Hey roomie, what’re you up to? Wanna hang and watch a movie or something?”

“I, uh… some other time? I think I’m going to go stay at Nathaniel’s tonight,” Rebecca says, scratching the back of her neck and deliberately avoiding Heather’s eyes.

“Oh. Isn’t he, like, out of town for work for a whole week?”

“Yup, uh-huh,” Rebecca agrees.

“Cool. I get it. Go have some me time in your dude’s fancy pad. Take your selfie stick, paddle your canoe. Keep up your textual relations. I’m not gonna judge.”

She pulls a face as Heather tilts her head. 

“Selfie stick? I don’t—oh. _Ohh._ Oh, you mean like a vibrator. Okay. Wow. I was just going to mope and feel sorry for myself and maybe like, bury my head in his pillow but okay. I see what you’re saying. A valuable suggestion that I will consider taking on board. Thank you, Heather.”

“It’s fine,” Heather says, wincing a little. “You don’t have to keep me updated on what you decide.”

She lets herself in with the key he left her and drops her purse on the side table, switching on lamps as she goes. Nathaniel’s apartment is immaculate, as it generally is even when he’s home but she can’t help but notice the inconsequential missing pieces that only signpost his absence—no messenger bag on the bench, no shoes by the door, no smart watch laying discarded on the nightstand, no suit jacket and tie draped carefully over the chair.

The bed’s definitely neater than she’d been motivated to leave it the previous morning after he’d slipped away, far too early for her to properly respond to his murmured farewell but she’d been awake enough to groan in disapproval at the withdrawal of his warmth behind her and sigh into the kiss he’d pressed into her temple—just. The maid’s been and the sheets are fresh so they don’t smell like him exactly but they still kind of smell like his place; she burrows under and buries herself in the covers, pushing her face deep down into the pillows and inhaling. 

As if on cue her phone vibrates to life beside her and she fumbles for it eagerly, unable to reign in the smile that fights its way onto her face at the name on the caller ID.

“Hi,” she sighs wistfully into the receiver.

“Hi,” he responds in kind. “How are you?”

She pauses to consider, focusing on the muffled sounds coming down the line. There’s the faint murmur of what she guesses is the television, and the distinct vibratory clank of a door filled with glass bottles being closed. She imagines him padding around the hotel room in his socks, tie discarded and shirt sleeves rolled up, raiding the mini-bar for a beverage with an acceptable calorie count.

“I’m okay,” she says eventually. “Just thinking about ordering some dinner. How are you?”

“Tired,” he admits. “I only just got back to the room. It’s been a long day.”

“So I’m at your apartment,” she says, doing her best to sound casual. “I let myself in with the spare key you gave me. Heather has her boyfriend over and I needed some space. Is that—is that okay?”

“Sure,” he says easily. “Though you better not be planning on eating in my bed again. I don’t want your crumbs in my Egyptian cotton.”

She grins, rolling over onto her stomach and picking at some lint on the bedspread.

“Well I’m definitely not sitting at that humungous table of yours all by myself. It’s ridiculous enough when it’s just the two of us.” She shifts, propping herself up on a pillow to get comfortable. “Besides, everything tastes so much better when you’re curled up in high thread-count sheets.”

“I’ll be sure to test that theory if the room service I ordered ever arrives.”

She hums in response. “You know, it’s too bad you’re all alone in that big hotel bed, instead of here with me.”

“Oh yeah? And what would you do to me if I was?”

She bites her bottom lip and absently presses her thighs together, considering.

“Mm, probably, like, lie next to you and read a book or something,” she says, tone breathy and far more suggestive than the actual words.

Nathaniel huffs out a breath. “Hot. What are you wearing?”

“Old jeans and a sweater that smells suspiciously like garlic.”

“God, you’re terrible at this game.”

“Sorry. I am wearing a great bra, though. Like, the hint of cleavage flashing from the neckline is objectively fantastic.”

He laughs and she cranes her neck down and gives them an absent squeeze to punctuate despite him not being able to see. She thinks about what Heather said earlier and considers offering to send him a picture but she can already hear the weariness in his voice—another night, maybe.

There’s the smothered sound of a yawn, as if he’s pulled the phone away or stifled it with the back of his hand.

“Are you still awake, or is my woeful attempt at seduction putting you to sleep?” she teases.

He clears his throat and mumbles something incoherent before apparently composing himself. “Of course. There’s a gorgeous, garlic-scented girl in my bed, and she has my undivided attention.”

She smiles. “Nathaniel?”

“Mm?”

“Get some sleep.”

“Yeah, okay.”

She ends up ordering Thai food and only feels the slightest bit guilty as she scrubs the smear of green curry from the corner of his covers with a damp paper towel. 

When she stirs in the morning she instinctively rolls over and pats the space beside her, hand connecting only with the pillow she’d fallen asleep hugging, arm slung around the width of it where she’d tugged it lengthways against her torso. As she blinks into consciousness she recalls where she is and, more to the point, where Nathaniel is not, flopping onto her back and expelling a dejected whine.

Six more days. It’s nothing. She can totally do this.

* * *

“Where are you going? Heather, nooo, don’t leave. I need you to hang out with me and distract me. Can I cash in a raincheck on that movie?” Rebecca asks, scrambling to the edge of the couch, sounding almost panicked.

“You didn’t technically ask for a raincheck,” Heather points out, “you just left, so. That’s not really store policy.”

“No, Heather, please. I can’t be alone right now. I need you to be my hobby, because that’s what I’m supposed to be doing, for my therapy, I’m supposed to be having hobbies and making sure I do things that aren’t just being in a relationship. I need you to be like my… hobby alibi, so I don’t just spend this entire week sniffing Nathaniel’s shirts while he’s out of town.”

“Or you could get, like, an actual hobby,” Heather says. “Hobbies can be fun. That’s kind of the point.”

“Yeah, okay. But can you just pick one for me? What do you think I’d be good at? Knitting? Coin collecting? Stamps? Am I more of a coin girl or a stamps kind of girl? You know what, stamps is probably safer—I’m terrible with money.”

Heather lets out an exasperated sigh. “Do you really need me to be your guidance counsellor? You barely listen to me as it is.”

“Heath-errr! You’ve taken basically every community college class available to man. Or, should I say, woman. You’ve sampled a wide variety of vocational wares. Your time to impart wisdom has come. Let’s go. Analyse me.”

“Can’t you just take a Buzzfeed quiz, or something?”

Rebecca pouts, but draws inspiration from the suggestion anyway, flipping open her computer and bringing up the Wikipedia entry for _hobbies._ She narrows her eyes at the list.

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Let’s see. Ooh, what’s this? _Macrame._ Macrame sounds fun. Let’s have a look. Huh. ’A form of textiling, using knotting’. Okay. Okay. I could probably tie some knots. Could do some textiling.” She rolls her shoulders, looking to Heather for encouragement. “So that’s a maybe. You know what? I’m just going to close my eyes, and just pick one. Let the universe decide. I’ll just pick one. My new hobby is going to be…” She opens her eyes and blinks at where her finger is at on the screen. She gives an elaborate flourish. “Taxidermy. My new hobby is taxidermy. Alright. A little morbid, but I can work with that.”

“Yeah, I know what your attention span is like—you’re not bringing dead animals in here,” Heather says, reaching over and closing the tab. “Why don’t you just see what night classes they have on at the community centre? Learn to cook, or something. That’s a hobby _and_ a useful life skill.”

“Oh, I technically know how to cook,” Rebecca says. “I just generally choose not to. It’s like budgeting, or using a washing machine.”

Heather crosses her arms and gives her a generally unimpressed look as she obediently navigates to the community centre website. There’s a list of courses, just as Heather suggested, ranging from beginner’s Italian to intermediate ceramics but what eventually catches Rebecca’s eye is the link at the bottom for an upcoming workshop, her hand excitedly reaching up to grope blindly over her shoulder until she successfully connects with Heather’s shirt, yanking her closer.

“Heather! Look! Look at this. A musical theatre workshop. This is kismet. This is fate. Musical theatre has always been my calling. This is perfect for me, right?”

Heather raises her eyebrows and pretends she didn’t hear the question. “Hmm?”

“Dr Akopian would be so proud of me right now, reconnecting with my dramaturgical roots.”

“I think that class is for children,” Heather points out cautiously. “It’s in the Easter vacation section.”

“Don’t be silly—the _theatre_ is for all ages,” Rebecca dismisses, donning her exaggerated classical accent and drawing out the word.

“Okay, well, either way—it’s not going to help you out this week, so maybe fill out an expression of interest form and while you wait for them to get back to you with an actual age bracket, try taking up something simple and normal that you can get started on with a trip to the store, like scrapbooking, or something.”

“Simple and normal, you say. Like scrapbooking.”

She supposes she can work with that.

* * *

He’s barely in the door and had a chance to put down his luggage before she catapults herself off the bed and launches herself at him; she surges into him, arms slung so tightly around his neck her elbows are almost touching, the all-consuming urge to wrap her entire body around his and _squeeze_ overwhelming everything else. 

“I missed you,” she breathes into the hollow of his throat. “Oh my god, I hate how much I missed you.”

“Oof. Hello.”

Nathaniel’s eyebrows lift in amusement as he holds her against him, one hand on the small of her back, the other in her hair. She continues to cling to him even as he shuffles them across the room and eases them down onto the couch, her legs folding up around his hips, thighs pressing at his sides and if she had even a single ounce of shame she’d be embarrassed but as it is she doesn’t care.

“I was only gone a week,” he says.

“The longest week of my life,” she counters, pressing up on to her knees to straddle him more comfortably before flopping forwards, fingers flexing at the exposed skin of his collar where his shoulders flow into his neck, sliding her cheek against the unexpected roughness of his and closing her eyes, finally content. “We’re not moving from this spot for at least an hour. I need to memorise you again. I’ve forgotten what you feel like.”

He chuckles, and it vibrates right through her.

“Maybe I’ll go away more often, if this is the kind of welcome I’m going to get when I come back.”

“Don’t you dare,” she says. She drags her nose up the crease of his jaw and inhales deeply, groaning. “Mm, you smell good.”

“I’m sure I smell like stale sweat and twelve hours spent travelling without a shower,” he protests but she shakes her head, grazing his temple with each pass.

“Nope, you smell like home,” she mumbles, almost too muffled to hear but he catches it, the surprise seizing in his chest before spreading through him and blooming steadily into a pleasant warmth.

(He feels something coil tight in his stomach when he thinks about how intoxicatingly _good_ it feels to return to something other than an empty apartment.)

When nearly ten minutes pass and her grip on him shows no sign on loosening he sighs gently, his hand finding her chin to tug her lips towards his, ready to claim the welcome home kiss he’s thus far been denied. She seems to realise the error of her ways and melts down into him, making tiny noises of contentment as she smiles against his mouth. 

“Can I get up now?” he asks once they pull back. “I’d still like to get changed.”

“An hour,” she insists. “I still have forty minutes left _at least._ ”

She relinquishes her hold only slightly, reluctantly letting him shift her off him and to the side so he can bend down to take off his shoes, her legs still stretched haphazardly across his lap. She watches intently as he undoes his tie, top buttons and cuffs, discarding his smart watch on the coffee table and rubbing gingerly at his wrist before pushing up his sleeves. The second he looks done she’s on him again, curling into his side and wrapping herself around his arm, nuzzling into his shoulder.

“Really?”

“I told you,” she says, softly but seriously, eyes wide. “I missed you.”

“I might have missed you too,” he says quietly, smiling, tucking her hair behind her ear. “But only a little bit.”

“Well, you’re very tall, so. There’s more of you to miss.”

There’s an undercurrent of urgency to the way her eyes flit across his face, greedily drinking him in.

“You haven’t shaved,” she notes, eyes raking over his jaw.

He palms his chin. “Oh, you want me to go—”

“Nope. You’re not going anywhere,” she interrupts, shaking her head. 

He huffs in amusement and she’s shifting closer, their eyes on each others’ mouths and then they’re kissing again, firmer and more deliberate this time. She slips the remainder of his buttons through their eyelets, pushing his shirt down over his shoulders as he tugs on the hem of the navy t-shirt of his she’s stolen to wear.

“I like this,” he says against her lips. “Is it new?”

She grins into him. “Got it second hand. Some guy left town for a week and his girlfriend got bored and sold all his personal belongings on Craigslist.”

“Admit it. You’re not here to see me at all. You broke in to my apartment just to steal my shirts.”

“And sleep in your bed,” she agrees once he’s pulled the shirt in question up over her head.

“Mm… speaking of my bed, can we move this there or do we have to wait half an hour first?”

“Depends. Are we having sex or going swimming?”

“Huh?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m feeling open to compromise,” she says breathlessly, wrapping herself around him again. 

He carries her over to the end of the bed, holding her up by the backs of her thighs as she cinches them over his hips, arms locked around his neck and mouth attached somewhere just below his ear, drawing out a delicious groan from him as he deposits her on top of the covers. There’s a moment where he just stands there watching her, sprawled out and flushed in her nude bra and blue pyjama shorts until she twists restlessly and pouts up at him, spurring him into action as he quickly sheds his shirt.

“I lied,” he groans into her neck, settling back over her. “I missed you. I missed you an unprofessional amount.”

“Mm, unprofessional? I’m listening—tell me more.”

“Sometimes you make it very hard to focus.”

“Me?” she teases, innocently. “I wasn’t even there.”

“That was the distracting part.”

“Are you telling me you weren’t just thinking about me all alone in your hotel room at night?” she asks, voice low, her fingernails dragging lightly down the skin of his back. “You were thinking about me at work? While you were with clients?”

“Have you met yourself? You can be extremely demanding.”

He kisses her crushingly and she loves it when he gets like this; heady and desperate and almost moody in his want for her, his brow furrowed but expression reverent. How he worships every inch of her skin as it’s revealed to him, and all the while she’s dragging him closer, closer, craving his weight over her. His stubble scrapes at her throat as he kisses along her jaw and she bites back a moan, imagining the scratch of it at the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.

She lets her knees fall further open in gentle invitation, pulling at his shoulders and slanting her hips upwards in a supporting argument; Nathaniel takes the subtle hint and trails his hands down her stomach before sliding his fingers beneath the band of her underwear where it rests at her hips.

In an echo of her earlier sentiments he seems to be satisfied in taking his time reacquainting himself with her body but a week’s worth of wanting from Rebecca swiftly manifests itself as impatience; she figures there’ll be more than enough time for all this other stuff later. For now she just wants to _feel_ him—over her, around her, inside her—and she’s quick to communicate her lack of tolerance towards any detours he attempts along the way.

She groans in protest later when he rolls off of her and out of the bed, after, transforming it into a begrudging grunt when he leans over to drop a kiss into her hair before he heads for the bathroom.

He eventually slips back in next to her, drawing the sheets up over them as she flops over onto him, swinging a leg up and sprawling out completely on top of him.

“I’m pretty much punch-drunk on oxytocin right now,” she mumbles, tracing patterns on his chest with her fingertips. “I’m disturbingly pliable. You could probably get me to agree to practically anything. I’m like putty in your ginormous but gentle, extremely-skilled hands.”

“Huh. Good to know. Once I’ve regained cognitive function I’ll be sure to manipulate you into doing my evil bidding.”

He skates his spread palm up her spine, settling it in the space between her shoulder blades. It’s good, so good just to feel his skin on hers and she’s practically purring in satisfaction at this point, pressed as she is against him. All the errant conversations she’s been waiting a week to have with him flit through her mind in lazy succession but she can’t bring herself to hold on to any of them, drifting through the fog of pure contentment clouding her cerebral cortex.

“It’s been a rough week,” she manages eventually, “but I guess this is making up for it.”

“It wasn’t all bad though.” He lowers his voice to a smug murmur, raising his eyebrows. “I mean, those last two nights, on the phone, that was pretty—”

“Yeah,” she agrees, biting down on her lip, tempering her grin. She flushes with a renewed rush of heat thinking about it. “Like, the real thing is definitely better, but we kind of crushed the long-distance phone sex, huh?”

Nathaniel’s eyes are dark and hooded as they track predictably to her mouth and she can see it in his face as she cranes her neck to reach him that his mood mirrors her own—boneless and blissful but simultaneously insatiable.

“Again?” he murmurs in her ear when he’s sufficiently recuperated, tracing the swell of her ass with both hands.

“Mmm, okay,” she says, lifting her head lazily to look at him with an absent squeeze of her thighs. “I guess you talked me into it.”

* * *

“We’re not leaving this bed for a whole week,” she announces once they’re well and truly spent, hooking her leg over his. “It’s only fair.”

“You’re imposing a lot of time limits today.”

There’s something soft and adoring in the way he’s gazing down at her that makes her heart feel like it’s going to burst, swollen impossibly past its usual size until it’s taken up the entirety of her ribcage, leaving her with no space left to breathe. She curls her toes beneath the covers, clenching, before flexing her feet out from the arch. 

Sometimes the way he looks at her makes her feel warm and safe and terrified all at once.

“I’m trying to be realistic,” she says.

“Realistic. Really.”

“Uh-huh. Otherwise I’d just keep you here with me forever.”

She tenses unexpectedly, then, sobering; turned suddenly self conscious about what she’s said and she twists away from him, swallowing, clearing her throat lightly. He frowns and tries to draw her back to him but she won’t meet his eyes.

“Rebecca—”

“I’m kind of sleepy,” she interrupts, turning onto her side to face away from him. “Can we just…?”

Despite her initial suggestion of a cold shoulder she presses back into him, insistent in insinuating his arms around her, wishing she could properly articulate the way she just wants him to hold her tighter, to apply the appropriate pressure that will ease the unabating aching in her chest. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m being super clingy and weird. It’s too much. It’s annoying. I’ll stop.”

“You’re not—it’s not annoying,” he says, frown deepening. “Why would you say that? Because I told you, I missed you too. We’re on the same page, here.”

She lets out a tiny noise that not even she is sure what it’s trying to convey, turning her head into him and closing her eyes tightly when he drops a kiss behind her ear.

“I missed you,” he insists again, voice barely a murmur. “And I’d stay here with you a whole week if I could. But I doubt you’d want me that long. You still haven’t let me shower.”

She can’t help but laugh at that, shaking gently in his embrace and drawing a relieved breath out of him that tickles as it travels along the back of her neck.

“I’m glad you’re home,” she says, quietly. 

* * *

She dozes off and when she wakes the bedspread has been draped over her but the space beside her is empty, her searching arms connecting with nothing but air.

“I’m here,” Nathaniel says gently, before the noise of protest can even form in the back of her throat, and she rolls over to find him curled up in the chair next to the nightstand. 

His hair is wet and spiky and he’s pulled on a pair of grey sweats so she surmises he’s finally showered while she slept on, oblivious. 

“Why’re you so far away?” she mumbles, rubbing at her eyes. Then, suspiciously, “Were you watching me sleep?”

“Of course not,” he scoffs. “That’s just… that would be sentimental and weird.”

“Uh-huh. Well come back to bed, you big sentimental weirdo. I wasn’t done suffocating you yet.”

He laughs at her and obeys, easing out of the chair and crawling back in beside her, enfolding her in his arms when she immediately snuggles closer.

Smoothing her hand up his stomach, she sighs happily and revels in the way the muscles there twitch beneath her touch. He rubs the pad of his thumb over her lips in kind, frowning as he traces the faint red of the rash blossoming at their edges as a result of their overly enthusiastic evening of making out combined with the bristling of his facial hair. She licks her lips at the sting.

“Talk to me,” she murmurs. “I’ve missed your voice.”

“I called you almost every day.”

She turns her head into his neck. “It’s not the same.”

“What do you want me to talk about?”

“I don’t know, Nathaniel,” she whines. “Just tell me things. Please?”

He’s contemplative for a moment, hand smoothing absently through her hair.

“Well, okay.”

He starts out telling her about how awful the food on the plane was, and how a baby started crying twenty minutes in and didn’t stop, and that the drawn curtains between business class and coach did exactly nothing to drown it out. He pauses to check she’s still conscious enough to pay attention and she smiles up at him, grazing her nails encouragingly across his open palm before interlacing their fingers and giving him a gentle squeeze, his cue to carry on. The conference had been sometimes interesting but for the most part dull; he’d run into several people he’d gone to school with but the leggy blonde she now knows to be named Laura hadn’t been there. Bryce had made an appearance but spent most of the week elsewhere, presumably partying.

“Keep going,” she mumbles when he trails off, and her body vibrates as he laughs.

“Are you even awake?”

“I’m listening,” she insists.

She drifts off to the sound of him murmuring in her ear and the gentle rumbling of it in his chest beneath her, lulled into slumber by the timbre of his voice and the soothing repetitive motion of his fingers carding through her curls.

When she wakes again it’s to the sunlight streaming in through the curtains and this time when she rolls over reaching for him her hands connect satisfyingly with warm skin; Nathaniel stirs but then falls still and she spends the stretch of seconds that follow drinking him in, his profile almost glowing in the backlight, illuminating the ruffled crest of his hair and highlighting the dusting of scruff along his jaw. His arm rises and falls with each steady, even breath, slung over his stomach and drawing her attention to where the sheets have pooled low around his hips at the waistband of his sweats. She tamps down on the impulse to dip below, certain muscles already pulsing in painful protest, settling instead for inching nearer until she’s as close as possible without actually touching him.

She fixates on the mole at the base of the column of his throat, thoughts drifting to the night before, the way he’d looked at her and the way she’d wanted to inhale him, consume him, crawl inside him and live there. It feels a little too much like losing herself and she can’t go there, not again, not after all the progress she’s been making and she panics because it’s too much, she’s too much and this isn’t what they’re doing here, isn’t why it’s been working.

She slips out of the bed and dresses quietly in the half-light, scrunching her eyes shut when she can’t find all the clothes she came in and has to settle for his navy shirt over her own. It’s Nathaniel’s turn to wake disoriented and alone, and when she gets home and her phone chimes with his confused _what happened to spending the entire week in bed?_ she chokes back her miserable laugh with the back of her hand and makes up an excuse about Heather needing her help and being worried about UTIs.

* * *

“Heather, wake up, I need you!”

She thumps urgently on the wood to no immediate response; her hand twists on the door knob but before she can push the muffled sound of Heather’s gruff commanding tone stops her in her tracks.

“So help me God if you open that door without being invited I will straight up _murder_ you.”

Rebecca lets out a frustrated whine but releases the handle obediently, relieved when the door swings aggressively open a moment later to reveal Heather tugging a baggy sweater down over her thighs, unimpressed.

“Just so you know, not all the male love interests in this household enjoy a dose of exhibitionism with their morning coffee. You can’t just, like, barge in on people that haven’t consented to being seen in a state of undress.”

“Please. Tell Hector it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Rebecca scoffs, her attempt to peer over Heather’s shoulder effectively blocked by her roommate stepping further forward and pulling the door tighter.

“Does this unsolicited disturbance to my Saturday sleep-in serve a purpose, or are you just testing my zen?”

“I need you to come to an audition with me.”

“What?”

“They’re holding auditions for _Rent_ at the community centre, and I may have signed us up. Registration closed two weeks ago, but this morning I made a somewhat sizeable donation to the resident amateur theatre company and suddenly they were able to squeeze us in. Anyway, I put you down for Mimi—was that presumptuous? You can probably switch, no biggie. I know it’s not much notice to prepare a song, but I already checked with them and honestly you can just sing something by Britney Spears if you want to. I myself will be auditioning for the role of Maureen. I know what you’re thinking— that I should probably identify with Joanne more, and on paper that’s probably true, but—”

“Are you like, having a manic episode right now?” Heather asks skeptically, cutting her off and crossing her arms. “And what makes you think I want to exploit my carefully cultivated vocal fry for the cruelty of the stage?”

“I mean, there’s a very high chance you’ll be watching me make a giant fool of myself, which I happen to know for a fact you enjoy.”

Rebecca widens her eyes, pleading and solemn, and Heather looks her up and down, considering.

“Fine. I’ll do it. But only because Hector’s going to a garden show with his mom later and I have nothing better to do today. Horticulture is one of their mother-son things—I don’t like to third wheel.” She twists to call over her shoulder. “I’m going out. Rebecca needs me for karaoke back-up, or something. Say hi to your mom for me.”

* * *

“Are we going to have a Talk with a capital-T right now, or can I nap on the way over?”

“What?”

Heather cracks an eyelid from where she’s placed the passenger seat in full recline, shooting Rebecca a sidelong glance.

“Something happened with Mr Tall, White and Handsome and you’re channelling all your resulting nervous energy into an impulsive activity, right? It’s textbook you. I mean, it seems pretty harmless so far and I’m kind of just along for the ride but I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to, like, ask you about it.”

“No I’m not,” Rebecca says automatically, keeping her eyes stubbornly on the road, the rearview mirror, anywhere but Heather. “That’s not what this is. This is me having hobbies now.”

“Cool—nap time it is,” Heather sighs, sinking back in the seat and tugging her beanie down over her eyes. “Wake me up when get there.”

* * *

“I was wondering when you’d show up,” Heather says when she opens the door later to find Nathaniel hovering on the welcome mat.

“Is Rebecca home?”

“Yeah, she’s in her room. Sulking.”

“Sulking?” he echoes.

“She won’t actually admit it, but she’s mad because I’m accidentally more musically inclined than she is, and I refused to stifle my natural singing abilities in order to protect her fragile ego,” she explains. “What did you do?”

He frowns. “What did _I_ do?”

“Oh, you’re not sure? Makes sense. I’m not convinced she knows, either. Anyway, have fun with… that.”

Heather gestures him inside and slinks back to the couch, flopping unceremoniously down and turning her attention back to the television without so much as a second glance at Nathaniel as he bemusedly makes his way down the hallway towards Rebecca’s bedroom. Knocking gently, he swings open the door at her noncommittal grunt only to have his eyebrows climb his forehead of their own volition at the sight of her sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bedspread, surrounded by a sea of stacks of colourful papers.

She doesn’t seem particularly surprised to see him, instead shrugging agitatedly—apparently in response to his confusion at her vast collection of card stock—and launching unprompted into an explanation.

“So while you were away I took up scrapbooking. Yeah. That lasted approximately three days. Turns out I don’t have much patience, or an attention span, or any artistic ability whatsoever. Also, you can get photo books printed for like, five dollars now, and they have all the templates to do it for you, so it’s kind of an obsolete skill. But before I realised all that, I spent eight hundred dollars on a photo printer, patterned paper and scissors that don’t cut in straight lines. I did make this, though.” She slides the binder with a single half-finished page across the covers towards him, somewhat aggressively presenting the heart-shaped frame containing a blurry selfie she’d snapped of them in the back of the limousine on New Years. “See, the funky 3D stickers are of cocktails because they didn’t have ones that were just champagne glasses. And the background has all these little fishbones on it, because we went to that fossil museum. I think it’s supposed to be for like, pictures of your cat, but whatever. Still works.”

“Wow. Very… creative,” Nathaniel says, passing it back. He points to one of the piles. “What are you going to do with all this stuff?”

“Good question, but I haven’t figured that out yet. Heather said I had to get it off the kitchen counter, though, so here we are.” She toys with the binder, not meeting his eyes. “This page is going on your fridge, though.”

He exhales on a laugh and edges closer, shifting some papers to clear a space so he can perch on the end of the bed. “Noted.” When she doesn’t seem like she’s going to say anything else he asks, “Is everything okay?”

Her eyes dart hastily to his, wide and forlorn.

“You kind of skipped out on me like a Spring Break one night stand this morning,” he jokes, but it comes out more awkward than anything.

“Yeah,” she says eventually, pressing her fingers to her temples and shaking her head absently. She eyes his navy t-shirt where she’d discarded it on the edge of her dresser when she’d gotten home and pushes down the brief flutter of panic in her chest, wincing. “Walk of shame and all. You’re right. I’m sorry. I guess I’m having an off day. I should have waited until you were awake, or at least left a note. That was inconsiderate of me.”

He studies her face for a moment but doesn’t push the issue.

“Heather mentioned something about… singing?”

“So along with scrapbooking, I also decided to try my hand at musical theatre. But, as it turns out, I’m not a particularly amazing singer. Which I’m realising now you were probably aware of,” she says off his answering half-smile.

“You sing in the shower a lot,” he says by way of explanation. “And at night when you’re trying to fall asleep. One time _during_ sex, which was… an experience. And when you’re doing dishes, or laundry—which granted, isn’t actually that often, but you get the idea.”

She huffs out a breath. “Heather, on the other hand, has an incredible voice. I dragged her along to an audition today and she got a callback, so she can add reluctant starlet to her twelve hundred page transcript of weirdly specific skillsets.”

Nathaniel hums sympathetically, grasping her knee in a reassuring squeeze. “You’re disappointed. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. It makes sense. She probably skews more urban than I do. Wait—is that word offensive? I feel like it’s offensive. I take it back. You know what I mean. Anyway, the casting panel seemed to think I was tone deaf,” she continues, holding up her hands and scrunching up her face in a way that indicates she finds the assessment ridiculous. “However there will probably be a small place for me in the ensemble. It’s community theatre, they don’t really turn people away.”

“Well, that could still be fun, right? I mean, Beethoven was deaf. So don’t let that stop you.”

“Yeah… I don’t know. When I was at that summer camp when I was sixteen, and when I did theatre in college… I loved being up on that stage and performing and getting to be somebody else for awhile, you know? But I’ve spent so much of my life trying to fit myself into roles. Maybe that’s not what I need from it anymore.” She bites down on her lip, thoughtful. “I do really love the theatre though. Why do I keep letting myself forget that?”

Sensing the question is hypothetical, Nathaniel says nothing, rubbing his thumb back and forth across her kneecap instead.

“Anyway—Heather, Valencia and I are going to take an acting class,” Rebecca says. “Just for fun, and kinda because I bullied slash guilt tripped them into it, plus it’s one of the few classes left on the whole entire planet that Heather hasn’t enrolled in yet.”

“An acting class? As if you weren’t already dramatic enough,” he mocks, and she struggles to disguise the smile that threatens to take over her face with an affronted pout, feeling a renewed surge of guilt at sneaking out on him earlier.

“Hey. Wanna, like, make out on top of all these overpriced craft supplies?” she asks after a beat, quirking the corner of her mouth up at him. “It’s like the Hobby Lobby version of doin’ it on your desk, which I’ve resigned myself to you never in a million years allowing.”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat that’s part laugh, part groan as she crawls towards him on all fours, sheets of paper sent scattering, creaking and creasing beneath her. 

“Sounds like a lot of painful paper cuts waiting to happen,” he says, grunting as she hauls herself into his lap.

“Who said we were taking off any of our clothes?” She rubs her nose across his before kissing him lazily. “You shaved,” she mumbles against his mouth. 

“And I think your face will thank me for it.”

He lets her push him back onto the bedspread, holding her steady against him as he swings his legs up onto the mattress, keeping his feet dangling off the edge until he can kick off his shoes. She presses up on her forearms to regard him.

“My chin, maybe,” she agrees playfully, swiping his own chin with her thumb. “My eyes aren’t so sure.”

* * *

“Tuesday? That should work, but just let me check my schedule.”

Nathaniel’s voice is unusually hushed as he speaks on the phone, and Rebecca slips into his office as silently as humanly possible in response, careful not to disturb him in the midst of whatever important call he seems to be taking.

He startles and clears his throat when he clocks her, voice becoming unnaturally hurried. “There’s no one here by that name. I think you have the wrong number, so you need to stop calling this office. Okay, bye.”

She raises her eyebrows as he slams down the phone.

“Wrong number,” he says, making a show of rearranging the papers on his desk.

“Uh-huh.”

“Some kind of telemarketer, I think. We should be on a register, to block them out, right?” he asks, tugging at his tie. “I need to check that. I should have Maya check that. Could you send her in, if you see her?”

Rebecca stares at him, frowning, and finally he raises his eyes to hers.

“Sorry, did you want something?” he asks, folding his hands in front of him.

“I was going to ask if for lunch you wanted to… you know what, never mind,” she says with a dismissive wave. “You’re busy, I’m busy. Another time. I think I saw Maya by the photocopier, so I’ll—I’ll just go get her for you.”

She backs out the way she came, doing her best to swallow down her confusion.

* * *

In an unexpected role reversal it’s Nathaniel that groans loudly at the disruption of his six a.m. alarm, Rebecca already awake and feeling oddly refreshed. She watches, entertained, as he twists and turns beside her in protest, his eyes sealed stubbornly shut. When there’s no sign of him reaching over to shut it off she does so herself, dropping his phone on the covers between them once it falls mercifully silent.

“I guess I’ll shower first,” she says.

She flips the covers back to get up but finds herself held back by the arm he hurriedly throws across her midsection to stop her escape from the bed; she sags back into him, amused but confused by his uncharacteristic reluctance to kickstart his morning routine. 

“Let’s just stay here a little longer,” he suggests, the end of his sentence getting lost in the crevice between her neck and the pillow as he noses his way into it and buries his head.

“This feels like a trick,” she says suspiciously, acquiescing nonetheless. “I don’t want to shoulder the blame for you being seven minutes later to work than usual. Which, by the way, is still fifty three minutes earlier than necessary.”

“Just lie down and ssh.”

Relaxing obediently against him she sighs, letting her eyes flutter shut and breathing synchronise with the slow rise and fall of his chest behind her.

“We should go away together somewhere,” he says lowly, just as she’s skirting along the edges of sleep again, startling her awake. 

She’s not sure where all this is coming from—this lazy, loose version of Nathaniel that suddenly believes in sleep-ins and vacation days—but she indulges it anyway, albeit warily.

“What did you have in mind?”

He wrinkles his nose. “Nowhere too beach-y. I know you like the beach but I can’t think of anything worse.”

“Ix-nay on the and-say—got it.”

“You should pick though,” he adds after a moment. “Anywhere you want to go. Regardless of if there’s a beach.”

“I’ll think about it,” she promises, patting his hand where it rests on her stomach, tracing the soft flesh of her belly. “One of us should really shower, though.”

He releases her reluctantly and she heads for the bathroom, taking far longer than necessary to wash her hair, all the while wondering what it is about his behaviour lately that’s been making her so uneasy.

* * *

“Paula, I need your help. Major code orange.”

“Okay—I know I threw away that chart you gave me, but now you’re just making stuff up.”

Paula drops the case file she’s been reviewing onto her desk, lips pursed, clearly not particularly thrilled to have been interrupted.

“Okay, yes, you’re right. I just made that one up then, but it’s just—it’s basic colour theory, Paula. Red and yellow make orange. It’s a code red-slash-yellow, obviously. C’mon. Follow the bouncing ball.”

Arching her eyebrows at her friend’s snippy tone, Paula sits back in her chair. “And what, pray tell, is a code red-slash-yellow? Could we maybe dispense with the code system and just say what we need? It’s clearly not working for anyone.”

“What we need is surveillance, old-school Paula style. The best you’ve got. Phone tap, car tracker. The works.”

“What? On who? Cookie, what is going on?”

Rebecca drops down into her chair, worrying her lip. She expels her explanation in an embarrassed rush. “Nathaniel. It’s Nathaniel.”

If she wasn’t already dubious before, Paula’s expression shifts to full-blown incredulity, raising her hands as if the defensive gesture will help keep her out of whatever inappropriate course of action Rebecca is determined to take.

“Nope. Uh-uh. Absolutely not. Besides the fact that we agreed no more of this—Rebecca, that man is my boss. I can’t. I _can’t_. You understand that, right?”

It’s exactly the response Rebecca expected, and she hates that she knows exactly which button to push, which card to play to hit the sore point, how to strike the chord to best to appeal to her friend to help her out.

“Nathaniel’s cheating on me,” she blurts out suddenly, and Paula’s eyes go wide.

“What? Honey, what on earth is making you think that?”

“He’s being secretive and weird and he keeps going somewhere and not telling me what he’s doing. And the other morning I walked in on him on the phone to someone, _clearly_ talking about something important, but when he saw me he got all flustered and acted like it was a wrong number and hung up.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t mean he’s cheating on you. I mean, he was evasive with you before and that just turned out to be him panicking about his dad being rude to you at a Christmas party. Maybe you should just… I don’t know, ask him?”

“I can’t ask him,” Rebecca scoffs, scrunching up her face as if it’s the most absurd suggestion she’s ever heard. “Paula, no—I can’t ask him, because then I come off as needy and obsessive and like I don’t trust him, or whatever.”

“Which apparently you don’t,” Paula points out dryly.

“Okay, but Paula. If you’d had the opportunity to follow Scott when he was on his way out to meet with that girl, what was her name—Tanya?—you would’ve taken it, right? You would’ve wanted to know the truth?”

“I didn’t need to follow him to find out the truth,” Paula says. She makes a vomiting gesture with her hands. “He just blurted it out. Like, _blah—_ spewed it right up at me in the kitchen over breakfast.”

“Okay, but I can’t just wait around on the off chance Nathaniel decides to announce that’s he’s taken a secret lover over blueberry pancakes and cauliflower and kale juice. The juice is his,” she adds, then shakes her head. “You already knew that. You know that about him. I didn’t need to clarify.” 

She slumps dramatically back in her chair, using her feet to swivel herself dolefully from side to side.

“You know, he’s been so weirdly sweet and attentive lately. Like, he’s always been an extremely generous lover,” she says, ignoring Paula’s disgusted face, “but ever since he came back from that trip, it’s like he’s trying to make up for something, with all the compliments and the cuddling and the nice gestures and the gazing deeply into my eyes. Blegh. That’s probably it, right? He probably met someone on that trip, and now he’s feeling guilty and trying to overcompensate with affection.”

Paula stares at her a moment, incredulous. “Okay, or maybe he missed you, and realised how much he cares for and cherishes you while he was away, and wants to make sure you feel loved and appreciated,” she suggests, but Rebecca’s barely listening.

“Ugh, gross, no. That’s not it,” she dismisses. “I’m definitely leaning towards the guilty thing. Besides, didn’t you say Scott started being super helpful around the house right before he came clean?”

“Well,” Paula says, hesitantly. “I guess that’s true.” She considers for a moment, then leans forwards over her hands, dropping her voice conspiratorially. “Alright, I’ll help you. Just an old fashioned stakeout, though—none of this phone tapping or car tracker nonsense. And on one condition. That you at least try and ask him what’s going on first. He might surprise you, and you’ll save yourself feeling stupid about it after. Honey, just _talk_ to him. Give him a chance.”

* * *

She hovers in the threshold of Nathaniel’s kitchen as he rinses out the coffee pot before moving on to her breakfast dishes. Bracing herself both mentally and physically against the counter she takes a deep breath, irritated by the tell-tale high pitch to her voice.

“Hey—I’ve got some cheap red wine and a whole house to myself, so what do you say to coming over tonight and making out on the couch for four hours like a couple of drunk horny teenagers whose parents just went out of town?”

“Hmm, I love your way of dressing it up like it’s not just a regular Tuesday for us,” he murmurs, closing the dishwasher and stepping between her outstretched legs, cupping her curls briefly before sliding his hands into her hair.

“Yeah, this time the wine’s real nasty though, so it’s extra authentic. Comes in a cask and everything.”

Nathaniel wrinkles his nose and tilts his head. “Oh, it’s so cute that you think I’d drink wine out of a box.”

“Careful,” she warns, unable to hold back her bark of laughter. “Your privilege is showing.” She skims her fingernails up his forearm enticingly. “So what do you say? Come round at… six?”

“Six,” he repeats, surprise evident in his voice despite his obvious attempts to squash it. “I have a meeting with a client after work, so I won’t be done by then. I can probably do eight, though, if you can hold off cracking open your boxed Bordeaux that long.”

Rebecca bites down on her lip, nails digging angry crescent-moons into her palm.

“A client? For which case?”

He rolls his shoulders, eyes flicking away from hers. “From the LA office—a follow up to the trip I had to take. Nothing major.” He smiles down at her. “Are you right to have dinner without me? We’ll probably grab some food while we talk.”

“Sure,” she says, forcing herself to return it. “I’ll have the plastic flutes chilled and ready to go when you get there.”

* * * 

Nathaniel arrives on her doorstep at eight p.m. as promised, an oversized bouquet of red roses cradled in the crook of his arm. He smiles when he sees her, despite the weariness in his face, and presses a quick kiss to her cheek as he passes them over.

“What are these for?” she asks, confused.

He shrugs, looking suddenly uncomfortable. “Do I need a reason to do something nice?”

“I mean, usually,” Rebecca says. “Kinda.”

He presses his fingers to the middle of his brow, shifting on his feet.

“I just wanted to get you something. You’ve seemed a little… I don’t know, quiet? Lately, and I… wanted to do something to make you smile.”

She raises her eyebrows at him, touched despite her skepticism. “That’s… sweet. Thank you.”

There’s a pause where he seems to study her face, looking increasingly disappointed as he raises a tentative finger to point at her.

“You’re not smiling, though. Are you okay?” he asks. “You’d tell me, if there was something wrong?”

“Yeah,” she says, shaking her head dismissively. “Yeah, of course I would. Everything’s great. You’re great. These are beautiful. This was really thoughtful. I should put them in some water.”

She turns her back on him and carries the flowers into the kitchen, setting them down in the sink while she searches for a vase. Coming up empty, she settles for stealing Heather’s jug out of the fridge and tipping the remnants of her orange juice into a glass before refilling it with water. Once the bouquet is taken care of she strains onto her tip-toes to rummage for wine glasses, flinching when Nathaniel catches her unawares as he stretches over her to beat her to them, brushing against her back as he reaches the glassware with ease.

“I thought we were splashing out on Dollar Store picnicware tonight,” he quips, obligingly holding them out so she can fill them.

“Turns out there is a lower limit to my trashiness. Also Heather kind of has a thing against single-use plastics, so. To the environment, I guess,” she toasts, clinking her glass against his and taking a hearty gulp. 

They retreat to the couch and Rebecca thumbs through the Netflix home screen for a movie they can not-watch, pretending she doesn’t feel Nathaniel’s eyes on her as he sips at his wine.

“So how was your meeting?” she asks casually, gaze focused firmly on the screen.

“Hmm?”

“Your meeting? With your client? How did it go?”

“Oh, fine. The usual. You know how it is.”

The lack of elaboration infuriates her but she doesn’t press it; she tries to force herself to stay calm by drawing long, deep breaths as he slides his arm around her companionably. She realises he smells faintly of something fruity—almost like apricots, mixed in with vanilla—and once she notices it she can’t stop breathing it in, as if pulling in enough of the unfamiliar, tainted air will somehow help her identify where it’s come from; as if the mass spectrometer of her suspicion can dismantle the scent into something that makes sense.

When he draws back the messy curtain of her hair to drop kisses along the nape of her neck she tenses suddenly, lifting her shoulders protectively and pulling away. She rubs a hand over her forehead.

“I don’t—I know what I said, earlier, about the making out and everything, but it turns out I’m just not really in the mood tonight. I think I drank too much wine before you got here, and it’s given me a headache, and made me kind of grumpy and sad and weird, so I think I’m going to just take a shower and go to bed.”

“Oh,” he says, sitting back. “Okay. Do you want me to go?”

“I mean, you can stay if you want,” she shrugs. “Or not. Honestly I’m probably just going to end up starfishing it across the covers, knocking back some Tylenol and kicking down and out for the count, so it’s completely up to you if you want to stick around to spoon with a coma patient.”

She doesn’t meet his questioning eyes.

“It kind of sounds like you want to be alone,” Nathaniel says eventually, pushing to his feet, “so I’m just going to go and let you get some rest.” He presses a gentle kiss to her temple. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I hope the Tylenol kicks in soon.”

“Thanks,” she says, patting him absently on the chest. “Me too. And thanks again for the roses. They were really sweet.”

As soon as she’s sure he’s gone she groans, holds the box of wine up over her head and flicks open the tap, letting the liquid burn on the way down as it pours unrestrained into the back of her throat in a horrible, miserable gargle.

* * *

“This is a terrible idea,” Paula says for approximately the fifth time that evening. “Like, truly awful. We’re going to get caught, and I’m going to get fired.”

“Nathaniel’s not going to fire you,” Rebecca says, rolling her eyes. “You’re practically the only competent person in the office. And Paula, please—you’re way too good to get caught.”

“I used to be,” Paula grouches. “But I’m so rusty now, and with good reason—I’m supposed to be studying the law, not breaking it!”

“Listen. We’re not breaking any laws—we just happen to be out for a leisurely late night drive, in this random part of town we’ve never been to before, where my boyfriend whom is also our boss just so happens to be driving at a safe, observable distance in front of us. Oh, slow down—he’s turning.”

Nathaniel pulls into the driveway of a large, nice looking house with a carefully manicured garden, and Paula stops just out of sight down the street until they see him get out and go inside, cautiously rolling closer after the door is securely shut. 

An uncomfortable silence falls between the pair of them.

“He could be doing anything in there,” Paula protests eventually, throwing up her hands. “He could be visiting his sick uncle or buying something off Craigslist, or… taking a soy candle making class! You don’t know that there’s a woman in there, or that he’s sleeping with anybody. You said it yourself, you guys have amazing sex, all the time—why would he be cheating? It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Okay, but who lies about taking a soy candle making class? Huh?”

“Uh, I don’t know—a stoic attorney with a fragile ego and obvious issues with his own masculinity, maybe? Honey, this isn’t achieving anything. Let’s just go home, and—”

“We’re not going,” Rebecca snaps, nostrils flaring. “We’re here now, and he’s sneaking around behind my back, at somebody’s house, and we’re not going until I find out who this… this scarlet woman is.”

After nearly an hour passes with no developments Rebecca grows restless, binoculars long ago discarded on the centre console and Paula studying diligently for a pop quiz beside her.

“This is all your fault, you know,” she says, tone sulky.

“What?”

She gestures around herself. “All… this. Before I met you, I was just an inert gas, just minding my own business, chillin’ out with ma’ homies down the side of the periodic table.”

“A what now?”

“An inert—whatever, it doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is, you opened me up to a whole new realm of possibilities, stalking wise. It’s kind of terrifying.”

Paula laughs humourlessly. “Sweetie. You were arrested in college for burning your professor’s house down, so.”

“Those records were expunged, and that never happened.”

“You also burned your own house down,” Paula points out.

“…okay, fair point. I’m an arsonist at heart, yada yada. I’m going in for a closer look. Cover me.”

“If I smell smoke, I’m high-tailing it out of here, I hope you know that,” Paula calls after her as she creeps down the sidewalk.

Careful to stay out of sight from the front window, Rebecca sneaks up the driveway in a dramatic crouch, her all-black clothing painfully obvious against the pale sandstone pavers. The layers of lacy curtains prevent her from seeing anything of value inside save the warm glow of the lights and she huffs in frustration, pressing towards the door in the hopes of overhearing something instead.

She’s taken aback at the sound of footsteps approaching up the hallway and panics, back-pedalling until her foot finds the edge of the path, ankle twisting and sending her tumbling off-balance into the garden bed. Of course it coincides with the exact moment the front door swings open, Nathaniel spilling out into the cool evening air and closing it behind him only to find himself greeted with the undignified sight of his girlfriend sprawled hopelessly on her back in the rosebushes.

“Wh— _Rebecca_?”

Her eyes flutter shut with an embarrassed groan as she struggles to regain her footing, thorns jutting into her at every turn until Nathaniel apparently takes pity on her and hoists her unceremoniously to her feet. She rubs her shredded palms on her pants in an attempt to ease the sting.

“Rebecca, what the hell? What are you doing here? Are you—were you _following_ me?”

He sounds for the most part confused but there’s a definite undercurrent of annoyance there, and Rebecca shrinks in on herself, deflating in mortification at being caught. His eyes slide across the street to where Paula is parked.

“Listen, I can explain. I—”

“Who are you with? Paula?” he interrupts.

She nods timidly and he pinches his nose, sighing deeply. His tone is no-nonsense when he speaks again, his mouth drawn in a tight line as he jerks his chin in the direction of her car.

“Go tell her you’re coming home with me. Go on.”

When she meekly returns from doing what she’s told Nathaniel is in the process of shedding his suit jacket and hanging it up in the back of his car, lips still thin as he unbuttons his cuffs and rolls them to his elbows, sliding into the driver’s seat without another word in her direction. She dejectedly joins him, sliding into the passenger side and buckling her seatbelt before staring glumly down at her hands.

“Nathaniel—”

“When we get home,” he says, firmly, and she closes her mouth obediently as he reverses down the driveway.

She trails behind him into his apartment, hovering in the doorway and watching him move about the space switching on lights, his jacket slung over his arm. Once he’s done hanging it up he finally looks at her, gesturing towards the couch for her to sit. Rebecca expels a shaky breath and collapses into it beside him, immediately burying her face in her hands in despair.

“Okay, so I know following you like that was wrong, but you were lying to me, kind of, or at least not telling me something, and you’ve been acting way too nice and bringing me flowers and your jacket smelled like apricots, and you’ve never smelled like apricots before and I know I’m an asshole for not trusting you but I hate feeling like this,” she says, breathing laboured. She widens her eyes at him, fighting back tears. “I hate feeling like you’re lying to me, Nathaniel, so please just tell me what you were doing at that house.”

“You’re right.” His words aren’t what she was expecting, not remotely, and she takes in the apologetic crease of his brow with surprise. “You’re right,” he repeats, his mouth twisting where he presses his tongue against it from the inside. “I should have told you sooner. I’m sorry. I’ve recently started… seeing someone.”

She can barely stop herself from physically recoiling, his words hitting her like a heavy blow to the stomach, knocking the wind right out of her.

“Oh god,” she moans, eyes scrunching shut. She shrinks back as if trying to merge with the upholstery, holding a hand to her chest to steady herself. “Of course you are. Of course you’re cheating on me. I’m too much for you and not enough and of course you had to go somewhere else for something simple and hassle-free. I deserve this. I’ve caused too many infidelities of my own and this is the universe punishing me.”

“Punishing—what? Cheating on you? Rebecca—”

“Is she prettier than me? It’s someone that doesn’t eat pizza twice a week, right? Is she tall? I bet she’s tall. It’s just, you’re really tall and you should be with someone in your stratosphere, it makes sense.”

His large hands wrap around her arms, shaking her minutely to recapture her attention.

“Rebecca, stop. I’m not… cheating on you. Slow down.”

“B-but you just said…”

“Can you let me finish?” 

She shuts her mouth obediently but the dejected furrow doesn’t leave her brow, and Nathaniel’s firm grip on her upper arms relaxes somewhat.

“I meant I’ve been seeing someone… professionally,” he says, swallowing.

She sniffs and shakes her head in confusion, scrunching up her mouth. “Like… an interview? Are we hiring? Oh god, are you selling the firm?”

He huffs out a frustrated breath. “No, not like an interview, or any of that. Like… a medical professional.”

“A doctor?” She slides her hands up to grasp the sides of his face, concerned now. “Are you sick?”

“Not exactly. Remember when you joined that gym? What you said to me that day?”

He looks at her pointedly, waiting for the penny to drop until her eyes widen in recognition before morphing into a deep frown. She lets go of his face as if she’s been burned and pushes him away.

“ _Therapy?_ You’ve been sneaking around going to _therapy?_ Are you kidding me right now?”

“Are you actually angry about this?” he asks, bewildered. “I thought this was what you wanted.”

“Why wouldn’t you just tell me? Why would you lie?”

“We don’t talk about your therapy,” he points out.

“Sometimes we do! And you know that I go! It’s not some big secret that I lie to your face about.”

“Okay,” he concedes, raising his hands. “Okay. I should have told you. I’m sorry. I was… embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed?” she echoes, incredulous. “Nathaniel, you don’t have to be ashamed about asking for help. Did you think I’d think less of you? I’m not going to judge. _I_ go to therapy. _I_ suggested you go to therapy, remember?”

“It’s not that,” he says, swallowing. “Although, admittedly, that is hard for me too. Regardless of knowing of those things.”

“Then embarrassed by what?”

“All of it. Having… issues that won’t just go away. That stop me from being as open with you as I want to be. I feel closer to you than I’ve ever felt with anyone before. I don’t want to talk about my feelings with some stranger. I want to talk about them with you. I want to talk about everything with you. Sometimes I just… don’t know how.” He shrugs, abashed. “I know that sounds stupid.”

She stares at him, taking in the sobering vulnerability etched into every crease of his forlorn face. The irritation at him dissipates immediately, giving way to an uneasy surge of empathy that swells inside her the longer she looks at him and thinks about his words.

“Nathaniel,” she whispers, shaking her head before dragging him down to her, pushing their foreheads together. “It’s not stupid.”

She feels a sharp pang in her chest and then it’s there again—the overwhelming desire to wrap herself around him and squeeze and not let go. She settles for crawling into his lap and winding an arm around his neck to hold him against her, nose bumping into his chin.

“Just so you know, that’s a lot to put on one person,” she says quietly. “Not that I’m rejecting the sentiment—I want to talk about everything with you, too—but what I’m saying is, even though I probably should be, with all the hours I’ve spent in doctors offices, I’m no expert. Sometimes it’s good to have someone who knows what they’re talking about like, objectively call you out on your shit, you know what I’m saying?”

He noses into her neck in lieu of a reply, his own grip on her tightening and Rebecca shifts in his lap, pulling back to look at him, contrite.

“I’m sorry I followed you. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”

Nathaniel clears his throat, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. “I’m sorry for giving you reason to think you couldn’t.”

She fiddles with his tie, loosening and re-tightening the knot repeatedly, smoothing out the length of the fabric along his front before glancing guiltily up at him.

“Confession time,” she says after a beat. “I was being weird before any of this. You noticed. You called me out on it. I’m sorry—being suspicious of you kind of felt like a way to justify my behaviour, but it wasn’t.” Glancing up from her hands she shrugs embarrassedly. “The truth is I’m just a mess.”

“Okay. So what was the real reason?”

“Honestly? You went on your business trip and I missed you. A lot. And then you came back and I… got a little overwhelmed by my own reaction to that.” Seeing in his face that he isn’t getting it she elaborates, “Because that’s what I do—I come on too strong, and I start having these stupid expectations, and I ruin things. It’s what happened with Robert, with Josh. With Greg. And the reason this has been working so well for so long is that I’ve been holding all that in check, but then you went away for a week and I lost my mind. I thought this was going to be different. I thought I could handle the idea of not having you around but I can’t. Because I’m broken, and I’m stupid, and I can’t just like anything a normal amount.”

“Hey. Stop. If missing someone you’re used to seeing every day because they’re suddenly gone for a week is stupid, then we’re both idiots,” he says gently. “And for the record, I… kind of like you more than the normal amount, too.”

(Nathaniel’s never really liked people, but he likes Rebecca enough that he thinks it should almost just about make up for it.)

Her answering smile is hesitant and he kisses her quickly and firmly to drive home his point. When they break for air she sighs and curls into him, tucking her head under his chin.

“Are you going to keep going?” she asks quietly after a few minutes, her fingers rubbing absently at the fabric of his shirt.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “But if I do, I will let you know.”

“Okay,” she says, nodding against him. “Okay.”

They drift back into companionable silence until Nathaniel frowns, realising for the first time the absurdity of her outfit.

“What on earth are you wearing?” he asks. She can feel the movement of his jaw atop her head.

“Stakeout clothes,” she mumbles, as if it's obvious.

“Okay,” he concedes, and his hold tightens affectionately around her. “Okay.”

* * *

When he brings up the topic of her impending birthday Rebecca scrunches up her face at him and brushes the conversation off; she doesn’t want to think about getting old, she says—says she’s capping herself at thirty and if the universe takes issue with that it can direct all complaints to the agent she’s going to get just as soon as she sorts out her budding acting career.

Nathaniel’s never really thought much about the concept of growing old with somebody, mostly because he doesn’t particularly like to acknowledge the idea of aging itself; doesn’t like to consider the body he’s looked after so carefully all these years getting brittle and betraying him. He has spent some time recently thinking about the way he can’t comprehend his life without her in it anymore, though, and while he’s not exactly a fan of the kind of weakness that inevitably lends itself to, he’s come to terms with the fact that feeling isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. If he does have to grow old—and to be clear, he intends on fighting that, tooth and nail—he’s realised he doesn’t want to imagine it with anything other than Rebecca curled into his side in bed each night, Rebecca sitting across from him at dinner, Rebecca’s laugh, Rebecca’s smile, Rebecca’s skin sliding softly against his. Not that he wants to think about her getting older, either—if he’s unsettled by the notion of his own mortality, his terror at hers is tenfold; her preservation instincts aren’t particularly strong and it’s not like she hasn’t given him good enough reason to be afraid.

He was at her wedding. He’s read the file. He watched her run away and felt the nauseating grip of the fear that she wasn’t coming back in more ways than one.

He knows what love can do to Rebecca Bunch. 

As much as he wants to believe he’s different, that _they're_ different—it’s equal parts self-defence and a desire to protect her from herself that holds him back.

“I need to tell my girlfriend that I love her,” is what he’d ended up blurting out once he’d managed to force himself into the chair opposite the therapist after pacing, sitting and standing abruptly twice in quick succession, taut with incomprehensible tension and not entirely sure what to do with his hands. He’d desperately gestured at his chest for lack of an alternative. “But there’s something wrong with me, and the words won’t come out, so I need you to fix me so I can… let her know. As soon as possible. Preferably tonight. Friday next week at the latest.”

He hadn't wanted to talk about his lonely childhood, or his fragile masculinity, or his complicated relationship with his father. None of that mattered. Those things were irrelevant. What he wanted was to give Rebecca what she wanted, or at least what he thought she’d want if she felt comfortable enough wanting it from him, if he wasn’t so wholly incapable of being vulnerable and expressing how he feels. 

Only now he’s not so sure. 

He realises he can be dense about these things but he’s not a complete moron; he’s been testing the waters for weeks and her responses have been worryingly mixed, oscillating disorientingly between not being able to keep her hands off him and completely shutting him out. He knows there’s other things at play here than just what’s going on inside his woefully inexperienced, inarticulate, inadequate heart—knows there’s a lot going on inside her head he can’t begin to understand, that she’s trying so much harder to hold herself together beneath the surface of what he or anybody else sees.

There are other ways to communicate love than just the words, the therapist had said. Ways to work himself up to it. But Nathaniel feels like he’s been working his way up to it for well over a year now—bringing her roses after her suicide attempt had been working his way up to it, planning her an over the top surprise birthday party had been working his way up to it, paying an exorbitant amount of money to rent out an entire museum on New Years Eve had been working his way up to it. Shouldn’t he be well and truly up to it by now?

They’ve been treating her birthday like an anniversary and the onus to do something special for her is twice as strong. He could buy her jewellery, of course, but he’s done that; could buy her any countless amount of things. Money is no object. But while she’s definitely never been one to rebuff a gift he knows what Rebecca likes to deal in is meaningful gestures, and he’s more determined than ever to find the appropriate one.

“Mmm, I love waking up next to you,” he sighs into her ear, arm tightening possessively around her middle.

She tenses momentarily, then shifts in his arms, rolling onto her back to look at him when he loosens his hold. His features are still softened by sleep as he smiles down at her. After a few seconds the smile falters, giving way to embarrassment.

“Sorry, that was—”

“No,” she interrupts, shaking her head. “That’s—it was really sweet. I… love… waking up next to you too. C’mere.”

She’s mindful of morning breath as she sticks to pressing her open mouthed kisses against his jaw and neck, sliding down his body beneath the blankets until he’s arching into the mattress, a desperate hand in her hair and then he’s heaving, panting, breathless; it’s almost before he can blink and Rebecca’s crawling out from under the covers and towards the bathroom, leaving him to listen to the familiar sounds of her brushing her teeth in his sink as he lies gasping on his back, wondering how it is she manages to derail him so thoroughly every single time.

* * *

Paula halves the last two donuts in the break room box and divides them between them, forming a makeshift Cookie Dough-Boston Kreme hybrid on each of their plates. She follows Rebecca’s gaze as she leans heavily on one elbow, eyes narrowed in the direction of Nathaniel’s office, where an animated but hushed conversation between her boyfriend and his barely tolerable lackey is clearly taking place. Rebecca rolls her eyes before returning her attention to her morning tea.

“Ugh. Nathaniel’s being all awkward and secretive and weird again and yelling at George all the time, so I know he’s planning something but I don’t know what.”

“Oh, maybe he’s going to propose!” Paula gasps, pressing her fist to her mouth. “Oh, how romantic, a birthday proposal.”

“Wait, what?”

“Well, you know. Yeah it’s quick, but it’s a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in a possession of a good fortune and all that.”

“Honestly I’m probably more of a Marianne Dashwood than an Elizabeth, though I do dig the literary reference and can ultimately work with either, but no. Nathaniel isn’t going to propose to me,” she says dismissively, shaking her head and laughing like it’s the craziest thing she’s ever heard. “We haven’t even been dating a year and we don’t really talk about stuff like that, so. We’re happy keeping it cas’. I mean, not casual as in not-serious, because somehow we’ve adequately managed to stumble our way into some semblance of a committed relationship, but _marriage?_ That isn’t on either of our radars.” She hesitates for a moment, struggling with an admission. “Besides, we haven’t even said… you know, yet, so there’s that.”

Paula stops mid-mouthful, raising her eyebrows and swallowing with an audible gulp.

“Woah, back up. You guys haven’t said I love you yet? Wow. _Wow._ I know Nathaniel has _a lot_ of emotional shortcomings but I’d just kind of assumed—”

“Hey, it’s not like I’ve said it either. And it’s not a big deal. We’ve been taking things slow. We’re both kind of terrible at this and we haven’t felt pressured to rush into anything.”

“Cookie, you slept with him on the first date. And it wasn’t even a good one. He barely earned it.”

“Eh, well—he did go down on me so it was worth it to my lady parts. But anyway—Paula, that was different,” she protests. “We’d already hooked up before that so it seemed pointless to delay the inevitable. And while in retrospect, maybe—in the interest of learning from my past behaviours—that could have waited, I’m not sorry that we didn’t. If anything it kind of helped kick start the other stuff. We’ve definitely had a few hiccups but lately things have been going well. Great, actually. Everything feels right. I don’t need the words right now. My life isn’t a stupid romcom anymore. Love is for babies. Or maybe it’s for the weak and elderly, I don’t remember. Basically it’s not for me right now. I don’t need it. I’m happy without it.”

“You two really have been spending too much time together,” Paula gripes. “You’re parroting his dumb sayings. _Which_ you clearly do not believe.”

Rebecca rolls her eyes.

“I’m not saying we don’t care for each other. We’re solid. But I’m not comparing my relationship to some antiquated checklist of milestones imposed by society in order to assess its validity. I have grown as a person, and I feel safe and secure taking things as they come. Which is big for me, so I really need you to back me up on this.”

“Oh, honey—I am right behind you every step of the way, you know that right? And I am so proud of you, working this all through. I’ll admit in the beginning I wasn’t entirely sold on the two of you given your respective psychological minefields but Nathaniel _clearly_ adores you, and I think you’ve actually been good for each other. And you being happy, that’s all I want.”

“Well, I am. Happy, that is. Really happy. For the first time in a long time.”

“And I’m really proud of you,” Paula smiles, grasping her hands in her own.

“Well thanks, Mama.”

She beams and cups her mug with both hands, the warmth settling in her chest not completely from the coffee.

* * *

Rebecca is teased awake by a wave of languid heat rolling and radiating out from her stomach down into her limbs, curling in her fingertips and toes and sending her entire body undulating. 

As she continues to come-to she’s vaguely aware that Nathaniel’s nuzzling into her neck, the hint of stubble dusting his jaw just enough to pleasantly tickle, the delicious way he’s mouthing at the skin below her ear combined with the patterns he’s lazily tracing up and down her spine sending her ragged; a whine escapes her throat as he nips at her, and when he notices she’s properly awake he hums in approval before soothing the stinging flesh with his tongue.

She whimpers and digs her nails into his bicep when he slips his hand between them to press her underwear aside because she’s already embarrassingly wet, of course she’s wet—her body torturously fine-tuned to his, now, even in slumber. He brings her off unhurriedly with his fingers, never once breaking eye contact except to catch her mouth with his when she arches and comes undone, white-hot stars pricking on the backs of her eyelids as he continues to coax her through the aftershocks until she gasps, hypersensitive, and drags his hand away.

“Mmm, good morning,” she murmurs appreciatively once her breath is back, leaning into him.

“Happy birthday,” he counters, and she’s inclined to agree.

“Very.”

She sinks back into the pillows, boneless, drifting back towards sleep and only vaguely aware of Nathaniel sliding out from beside her. She’s not entirely sure how much time passes before she stirs at the mattress dipping and the very tempting smell of coffee; when she manages to force her eyes open she finds him sitting back against the headboard watching her, a mug in each hand and a small breakfast tray on the bed in front of him.

“Am I dead?” she asks around a yawn, voice thick. “Have I died and gone to heaven?”

His face is annoyingly smug as he jerks his chin up at her and tells her to sit up, waiting until she’s arranged herself against the pillows and the headboard to pass her a coffee, which she sips gratefully.

“That was a way better wakeup call than my alarm clock,” she tells him. “You should probably patent that.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure that’s how patents work.”

He turns his attention to the breakfast tray, fingers hovering over the selection of fruits and she nods when he stops at the watermelon, opening her mouth obediently so he can pop the cube onto her tongue. She sucks on it thoughtfully before chewing, savouring the juice.

“Look at you, trying to get me to eat fruit,” she teases, reaching past him to grab another piece.

“There may even be a bagel in it for you if you make it through your recommended daily intake.”

“Aww, did you let carbs in your kitchen? Just for me?” 

They work their way through the platter, occasionally breaking to laughingly kiss the juice off the corners of each others mouths until Rebecca’s done, licking the stickiness off her fingers with shameless noisy smacks as Nathaniel disappears to the kitchen to dispose of the tray. When he returns his entire demeanour has changed, smugness exchanged entirely for uncertainty as he slips back into the bed, a red velvet box fastened with a silk bow cradled carefully in his hands.

Rebecca nearly chokes on her own saliva, her eyes widening and wincing closed in quick succession.

“Oh god, you’re not going to propose, are you?”

“Huh?”

She raises her eyebrows at the look of utter confusion on his face.

“ _Oh_ -kay, obviously misread the room there for a second. Ignore me, carry on?”

Nathaniel raises a hand, shaking his head and gesturing for her to stop.

“Hold on a minute. Should I be concerned that your response to thinking I might be proposing was to _groan?”_

“It’s a conversation we can definitely circle back to later but right now I need to know what’s actually in the box. Is it a puppy? Is it the head of Gwyneth Paltrow?”

He’s still frowning at her as he reluctantly hands it over.

“ _Human_ whiplash,” he tells her emphatically as she excitedly unfastens the ribbon.

“It’s a key. To another box? A puppy sized box? Not to ruin the surprise but I need to know—am I getting a birthday puppy? Blink twice for yes.”

“No. There’s no puppy,” he says, clearing his throat and smiling hesitantly. “It’s a key to here. To my apartment.”

She pats a sympathetic hand against his cheek.

“Oh, baby—it’s so cute that you think I haven’t already gotten a key cut to your apartment.”

He pulls a face at her. “This is more of a symbolic gift—this is a thing that people do, right? Anyway, I know your lease is almost up and Heather has been considering relocating with her boyfriend, which would leave you without a housemate. And if you wanted to keep your own place, I would get that too. Independence and solitude are a precious commodity that I respect the desire to maintain. But you also already spend a lot of your time here, so—”

She draws her lips into her mouth in an adorable smile. “Nathaniel, are you asking me to move in with you?”

“I am. Yes,” he says with slightly more conviction. “If you wanted to live here… or even look for somewhere else together… I… would… not be opposed to that.”

“Wow, I’ve never officially lived with a boy before. What happens if I get cooties?”

“I… don’t know how to answer that question.”

She turns the key over and over in her fingers, until the metal starts to feel as warm as she does. She folds her palm around it and presses it against her heart.

“This was really thoughtful. And I’m definitely going to talk this over with Heather and seriously consider it. Because I would like that too. A lot. So thank you. This was the perfect present.”

He smiles at her, relief apparent.

“It’s not your only present,” he explains. “It’s kind of the main one, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to go down, so there’s a backup.”

“ _Yes_ , backup puppy,” she mutters, pumping the air with her fist.

He shakes his head at her, expression exasperated but fond.

“I know I probably don’t say it that often, or at all, really…” He lets out a deep breath through his nose. “You are… very important to me.”

He cradles her face in his hands, thumbs lightly massaging her temples as he rests his forehead against hers, their noses brushing. The simple tenderness of it catches her off guard, and she can’t help her brow from furrowing a little as she smiles up at him.

“Hey, when did you get to be so sweet?” she teases, winding her arms around his neck. 

He lets out a chuff of amusement. “It’s disturbing, right?”

“Actually, it’s kind of doing it for me.”

And it’s true; her mind is basically a giddy cocktail of dopamine and serotonin by this point and there’s warmth pooling low in her stomach that is equal parts affection and hunger. She pushes up onto her knees and moves across to straddle him before kissing him slowly, languidly.

His fingers have just started to creep under the hem of her oversized shirt to stroke at the skin of her thighs when she tears herself away from his lips with a resounding smack, holding up a finger for him to wait.

“Just for the record, you’re important to me too. Like, super important. Like, really fucking super important.”

He laughs lightly against her mouth.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Because I know I haven’t really said as much either. But I mean it. And I know it sounds kinda blasé, or whatever, but it’s not, it’s the truth, so—”

He interrupts her by resuming his attack on her face.

“Mmmf, yeah, okay, enough talking, good call,” she sighs, reattaching their mouths and winding her fingers desperately through his hair.

They’re sinking back into the mattress, shirt already up and over her head when she pushes back again, leaning on her arms over him and tossing it aside, a little breathless.

“Also, full disclosure, you probably shouldn’t get me a puppy. I’d be a terrible pet owner. I can barely look after myself.”

Nathaniel laughs, his hand skimming her side, her shoulder, her collar bone, sliding up to tangle in her hair and tug her back down.

“I’m glad you came to that conclusion on your own, because I was worried I was going to have to hurt your feelings.”

* * *

“So about earlier—you thought I was proposing. That was kind of weird. Did you want to talk about that?”

There’s a lump in his throat that hasn’t gone away since she dismounted and flopped ungracefully down beside him with a satisfied hum, since the distraction of her body heat receded and left him lying next to her alone with his thoughts. His eyes are stubbornly on the ceiling, almost too afraid to clock her response but he can see in his periphery that she barely reacts, completely oblivious to his inner turmoil.

“Honestly, it’s just something dumb Paula said,” she says dismissively. “And I know that’s not on the cards, so it’s fine. You don’t have to freak out or anything.”

“Oh,” he says, a note of something strange in his voice. “Great.”

She’s lying propped up against his chest, an endearing half-frown of concentration on her face as she texts somebody—probably Paula—her thumbs tapping furiously on the screen of her phone. He watches her for a minute, trying to decide what he wants to say and when he does he waits for what seems like a break in her messaging to reach over and gently pry her phone from her grasp. He places it on the nightstand.

“Hey,” she pouts.

“Rebecca, I don’t want you to feel like you have to pretend you don’t want something you actually do.”

Her expression immediately turns wide-eyed and almost mournful, and she sits up and searches his face for a long time before she speaks.

“Nuh-uh. Nope. I don’t want to have this conversation with you. Not now. Not today.”

“Okay. Why?”

“About us wanting different things in life? Seriously? That’s like, immediate nails in the coffin, right?” She pulls away from him and moves to the edge of the bed, fumbling for her shirt. Her tone turns accusatory and cold. “We just had a really nice morning. It’s my birthday—why are you ruining this?”

He sits up straighter against the headboard, confused.

“Why are you angry?”

She looks panicked, like a caged animal; her entire frame vibrating with anxious energy as she dresses, her clumsiness in her agitation only serving to upset her further, and he can’t help but think back to the first night they ever spent together, here, the way he can practically see the warring impulses of her fight or flight response gearing up in a near-perfect recreation of that morning-after so long ago, right down to the accompanying uneasy twist in his stomach.

“Yes, I probably want to get married someday. Not right now, because yeah, what happened with Josh burned me—but every major milestone in our relationship was reached for the wrong reasons. I thought getting married, being in love—I thought that was what would finally make me happy. Make me not feel broken anymore. And while I know now that’s not true, a part of me still wants that for myself. I still want that promise, of in sickness and in health, ‘til death do us part. I’m still allowed to want the dumb fairytale.”

“But not with me,” he says, a little flatly.

“It doesn’t matter. None of it matters, because it’s not on the cards for me. None of this, none of what we’re doing is.” She slides her palm up her forehead, pushing up her hair. “Oh my god, I’m so stupid. I shouldn’t have let it get this far.”

For a moment he can only stare at her, panic prickling hotly along the back of his neck, stomach roiling as he tries to force himself to focus, to say something, _anything_ that will throw the brakes on whatever it is he’s sent them unintentionally careening towards by opening his stupid mouth.

“What? Why?” he asks, dumbly.

“Because,” she says, eyes wide and desperate. “That’s not how it goes.” She shrugs, tears pricking at her eyes. “You’re going to leave. Because you already said it, and because everybody always does. That’s what they do. They leave, and I fall apart. And I—”

“Hold on a second—said it? Rebecca, what—”

“And I thought I was fine, knowing this time that’s where this was headed, because I’ve been trying to be present, to not to obsess over the future and happy endings and just focus on where I am now. But this is always going to be a thing in our relationship. It’s not going to go away. You think being shackled to one person for eternity is stupid. Which means this has an expiration date. So, you know. Maybe we should talk about this more. Maybe we shouldn’t move in together.”

She shrugs somewhat aggressively in her cardigan, and when her shoulders sag with obvious emotional exhaustion he licks his lips and takes the brief lull in her soliloquy to at least attempt to fumble for the reins.

“How is it I can never get you to listen to me half the time but you manage to fixate on every dumb thing I say?” he asks, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. “Can you please just sit down and talk to me?”

Rebecca crosses her arms over her chest and scowls like a petulant child but eventually gives in, sliding back onto the bed on her knees and tucking her legs up beside her. Her lower lip remains pushed up in a sulky pout and she continues to avoid his gaze, even as he leans closer.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, firmly. “Rebecca, look at me.” He waits until she begrudgingly obeys, her damp eyes sliding reluctantly to his. His tone softens. “Rebecca, I am all in. I don’t know what else I can do or say to make you believe that, but it’s the truth.”

She doesn’t say anything, alternating between searching his face, considering, and picking idly at the bedspread. A strange sense of bravado settles over him at her silence, spurring him on.

“As a lawyer, I’ve always seen marriage more as a wager,” he says slowly, dropping his gaze to his hands. “Payment deferred. Betting someone half your stuff that you’re going to love them forever.”

She rewards him unexpectedly with a dry, quiet laugh. “Cute. Cynical, but cute.”

“Rebecca, if at some point you felt you wanted to… I’d bet you half.” Her wide eyes find his. “Because I do. Love you, that is. I should have said that earlier. And I’m not saying it should be now, because your instincts this morning were right—this is still very new. And I don’t know for sure if it’s going to be forever, because I don’t really have much experience with this; I don’t think either of us does. But what I’m saying is... I like the odds.”

Rebecca goes very still for a moment, her fingers fisting in the duvet. She takes a couple of deep gulps of air before she looks back up at him.

“You love me?” she says in a small voice.

He tilts his head at her. 

“Lil’ bit.”

She lets out a wobbly breath and they share an earnest smile before she leans in to kiss him, her hand coming up to cup the side of his face. To his immediate concern when she pulls back her eyes start to well up with tears and her body trembles with tiny sobs.

“Oh god, this is embarrassing,” she says shakily. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. I’m sorry. But seems like it’s probably going to be awhile, so if you need a bathroom break feel free.” 

He looks crestfallen as he draws her into him, smoothing down her hair.

“Making you cry today was really not my intention.”

“It’s okay. They’re healthy tears, I think.” She sniffs. “Wow, I guess I’ve been sitting on some stuff without realising it. God, they’re still coming. It feels really cathartic, though, so I’m just letting them roll. It’s fine,” she says, still wiping furiously at her cheeks. “I’m fine.”

After awhile her heaving slows to quiet, even breaths and he almost thinks she might have fallen asleep but when he cranes his neck down to look at her she hiccups adorably and lifts her blotchy face to his level, her fingers tracing lightly over his collarbone.

“So I feel like ultimately you’d probably have zero interest in most of the things I own because our tastes are so wildly different, but it’s yours. All of it. Half of it.” She looks at him through her damp lashes and sniffs again, giving him a small smile. “Bet you half.”

“Alright. But I call dibs on the alligator in the divorce.”

“What? No, you can’t have Ruth Gator Ginsburg; she’s mine. You can have Giraffesine Baker. Maybe. If it’s amicable. But you won’t get that in writing.”

He huffs out a laugh, overcome with relief and affection, squeezing her tighter against his side and pressing his forehead to hers. “Yeah. Okay.”

(He doesn’t think he’s ever felt lighter in his life.)

* * *

She rolls over to face him, and Nathaniel’s loosely slung arm tightens around her subconsciously in his sleep.

Eager to put the more upsetting aspects of the morning’s emotional rollercoaster behind them, he’d been quick to wheedle her out of bed after some brief but ardent cuddling interspersed with tender kisses; the rest of her gift had turned out to be an outrageously fancy dinner and a night at the theatre—Nathaniel Plimpton seated next to her at a musical, of all things, his warm hand barely leaving hers the entire evening—but preceding that he’d dragged her out to lunch and afterwards they’d walked it off, strolling aimlessly, window shopping down the street before heading home to get changed.

They hadn’t spoken again about his earlier admission, but—

“I love you,” he’d murmured with a press of his lips against her forehead once they were settled down in bed, sighing into her hair as he drifted off to sleep. 

—and Rebecca’s been lying there awake ever since.

He’d been so decisive, so matter of fact. She hadn't realised until that moment how much she'd been so desperately needing to hear it; to feel it, resonating deep within her, buried beneath the fear that came with progress and being so determined not to fall into her old patterns, to repeat her past mistakes.

She hadn’t gone to Nathaniel looking to be loved.

She’d even almost started out kind of hating him—or at least trying to—and she muses now that might have made all the difference. When someone has a penchant for pissing you off the way Nathaniel had when he’d barraged his way into her work life, you don’t preserve any particular concern for falling out of their favour. He’d managed to get immediately under her skin, yes; poking and prodding her a little too close to home-dwelling insecurities but she’d never really cared for his opinion of her. The physical attraction had been something else entirely; confusing and illicit and neuroses-inducingly mutual.

Rebecca’s always kind of felt like she’s been missing a special kind of glue—some token-issue adhesive people got assigned at birth that helped them hold themselves together, helped them hang on to things like love in their lives rather than being caught in a constant state of watching it drain futilely through their fingers like sand, like droplets, like everything else she’s ever clutched at but never been able to contain or carry with her for any notable period of time. Like everything else she’s ever yearned for with every fibre of her being but been unable to make stick. 

All her life she’s felt like she’s floating; felt untethered, naked, and raw, and like she’s had to try on someone else’s life like a costume to get a cue for who she’s supposed to be in any particular moment. Robert had made her feel like she was special, like she was smart, like he saw some kind of secret worth within her that nobody else did. She knows now that it’d been a lot about power, for him; guesses she’d known it on some level back then, too, because she’d played right into it, played the innocent, adoring schoolgirl that had blossomed beautifully under his expertly administered attention and affection.

Josh had been a lifeline back to a simpler and happier time when she’d been at a crossroads where she had needed it. There’s a part of her that still longs for that partition of her past, all its edges softened and weathered away with the sentimentality of nostalgia but she’s come far enough to be able to separate that from the unwitting target on which she’d fixated to pin her hopes and dreams; she’d been so desperate to mould herself to the shape of the girl whose happiness hinged on Josh Chan that she’d lost sight of everything else and it had very nearly destroyed her. She’s done with that specific brand of pretence—done with the bending over backwards for a boy, with pretending to be interested in video games or that she’s been harbouring a secret penchant for ping pong in order to make her company seem a little easier to swallow.

It occurs to her she’s not even sure what form that version of herself would take, what Nathaniel’s fantasy for her would be—an enthusiastic jogger? Well, she’s already tried that, kind of—but the motivations hadn’t been the same, and she’d felt startlingly comfortable in its consequential failure and inevitable abandonment. She has no idea what personal transformation would be best suited to winning his endearment because from the very beginning the thing he’s shown most interest in has been _her—_ there’s been no caveat to his adoration. She’s never, not once, felt compelled to beg.

She and Greg had been perpendicular lines, on similar courses but with opposing trajectories that had crossed briefly and memorably and that was that. She had needed to come to West Covina and he’d needed to get the hell out. His snarky foil to the flight of fancy that was her love story with Josh had seemed like the smarter option based purely on contrast but being an alternate choice hadn’t made him the right one. He could have been, maybe, if either of them had been in the right place to do things even slightly differently. But she’d needed to crash and burn with Josh, no matter how rock-bottom it had been and preceding that, Greg was always going to have sensed he was second string.

Nathaniel’s never made her feel like there’s glitter exploding inside of her but she thinks she’s realised there’s something better; he makes her feel relaxed, loose and grounded. He feels stable and _safe,_ which is something she never saw coming, not in a million years, but when she’s with him the world turns slower, quieter, calm. He knows things about her, more than any other man she’s been with ever has and granted, the majority of that was never revealed by choice, but regardless—he hasn’t run from her yet. He’s seen all the ugly parts of her and still manages to make her feel like he finds her beautiful.

He’s not necessarily the man of her dreams (and yet that’s not entirely true—there were _definitely_ dreams) but she’s not so interested in unattainable fantasy anymore.

He’s arrogant and stubborn and knows exactly how to push every last one of her buttons but by some confusing dichotomy he’s managed to be more doggedly patient and endearingly tender with her every step of the way than she ever could have hoped for; the fact that at some point the idea of waking up in a bed that doesn’t have him in it has become so utterly unappealing scares her and fills her with warmth in equal measure. She hadn’t gone chasing him like her happiness depended on it, this time, and she thinks that just might have been the key to encountering it not as an elusive end-game, but a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it by-product, nestled firmly somewhere in the vicinity of her no-longer-quite-so-broken heart.

Love hasn’t been kind to her once in her entire life but the way Nathaniel looks at her sometimes makes her feel like maybe there’s some sort of truce to be had if she’s patient and gentle enough with herself.

“Hey,” she says, quietly, a deep crease running down the middle of her forehead. She swallows when he doesn’t stir and inches closer, nose bumping his, consternation growing until she brings her hand up to tap him insistently on the cheek. “Hey.”

He groans and frowns at the interference, jerking away from the unexpected shock to his sleeping system before blinking awake drowsily to look at her.

“Rebecca—what the hell?” he demands, bewildered and a little cranky. 

She shakes her head at him, bring up her other hand so she can cup his face on both sides, ignoring his confusion.

“I love you,” she says, sincerely and matter of fact.

He stares at her for a long moment. “What time is it right now?”

“Approximately three thirty seven a.m.,” she supplies helpfully.

“And this couldn’t have waited until the morning?”

She shakes her head again, thumbs stroking across his cheeks.

“Okay then,” he says, studying her face. Then, “I love you too.”

Her eyes turn glassy and he frowns, mirroring her hold on his face with a warm palm.

“You’re not going to cry again, are you?” he asks, concerned.

“Shut up,” she says, and kisses him, trying to pour every ounce of the middle-of-the-night emotional journey she’s just been on into it, gratified when he eventually responds in kind. It’s soft and tender but a little desperate, both of them breathless when they break for air.

“So I think I’ve been scared of even thinking that this whole time because I kind of felt like I wasn’t allowed to. Like after everything that happened with Josh I lost the right, and investing anything in those words ever again would be a failure,” she admits. “But it’s not. It’s not a failure. I’m allowed to want the dumb fairytale because I’ve grown enough to know it’s not always going to be one—it’s going to be messy and hard but that’s okay because it’s worth it and I still want it. I want all that with you.”

“I’ve never said that to anyone before,” he says. He shakes his head. “Except my mom. Once or twice. Three times, max. And it’s not the same thing.” She laughs and gives a short, tight nod of acknowledgement as he continues. “I… meant what I said earlier. I want that too. Messes included.”

She moves her hand down his neck to his collarbone and traces absently along the edge of his pectoral with her fingers, biting at her bottom lip.

“Also? Fuck it. Let’s do it. Let’s move in together. But I think we should look for somewhere else because this place is kind of small for two people and there’s an awful lot of grey, which if I’m completely honest I’ve always found a bit depressing? I mean, the view is nice and the early morning light you get in here is nothing short of magical, but I also enjoy having, like, doors and an actual kitchen. Not that either one of us cooks all that much but sometimes the bench space comes in handy, you know what I’m saying?” 

He huffs in amusement when she waggles her eyebrows at him, tugging her closer.

“Yeah?” he asks quietly, unable to fight the soft smile spreading onto his face that’s immediately reflected on her own.

“Yeah.”

There’s a beat before she launches herself at him, growling, hands grabbing at his face and legs wrapping around his as she rolls onto her back, dragging him to follow and settle in over top of her. 

“We have to be up for work in two hours,” he says, even as his hands are slipping under her shirt.

She quirks her eyebrows at him. “Really? You’re worried this is going to take longer than two hours?”

He rolls his eyes and resists the compulsion to take her up on her haughty challenge.

“You better not get cranky later about the lack of sleep because I’m going to remind you who woke up whom.”

“You are vastly underestimating the ways in which a lifetime of disordered sleeping has prepared me for high functioning on little-to-no beauty rest. But also—stop being a baby, take your pants off and get inside me already.”

He makes a strangled noise because _god,_ sometimes she’s just too much, but they’re each fumbling out of their underwear and reaching for each other and the moment he’s done what she asked her mood switches swiftly back from playful to intense, her hands clutching urgently at himand mouth crushing hard to his once she’s pushed him up against the headboard and slid purposefully onto his lap. They yank her shirt off over her head together and then _oh god, yes, finally,_ there’s nothing between them but skin.

“Oh my god, I love you so much,” she tells him achingly, desperately, the words coming out in a sigh against his lips, to be consumed and exhaled, shared back and forth between them until it’s reduced back to nothing but air. 

It’s not orgasm-induced babble or a heat-of-the-moment slip, although oxytocin is undeniably involved; but mostly it’s a clear and present truth she can’t keep inside her anymore and he deserves unequivocally to know, something not quite a secret but that is meant just for him, for them, that she doesn’t feel the need to broadcast to the world because for the first time that isn’t what it feels like it’s about. There’s no music or fanfare, just the two of them, entwined, her body wound completely around him as he rocks up into her and she keens low in her throat.

“I love you,” she says again, and again, her fingers pulling at his the back of his head to urge his forehead bruisingly against hers as he smiles up at her and pants into her mouth.

(He feels dazed and ridiculously overwhelmed—not by the sentiment he’s finally been able to express because he’s felt the accompanying sensation to that for awhile—but by the unexpected giddiness of having it reflected back at him; for all his time spent agonising over something he’s never had to say he’s never considered the fact it’s not something he’s ever really had to hear, either.)

“Please,” she whimpers, fingers grasping at his neck.

His lips graze tantalisingly at her ear as he murmurs into it.

“I love you, Rebecca.”

The low and gravelled cadence of his voice does it for her as much as the words and she gasps into his shoulder as she comes, collapsing against him. He’s barely behind her to follow, fingertips digging into her hips and she rubs across his back in broad, soothing strokes. They’re both left heaving, boneless and spent, and Rebecca revels in the closeness, turning her head to nestle in the crook of his neck, using the friction of his sweat-soaked skin to push her hair back from her eyes.

“You know, I thought my last birthday was going to be hard to top, but this one’s been pretty solid,” she says once she’s caught her breath, pressing lazy, open-mouthed kisses up his throat and jawline and continuing over his face.

“Technically, it’s not your birthday anymore.”

She lets their lips meet clumsily, unhurried, before pulling back with a sigh.

“I’ve never cared for technicalities,” she says airily.

She eases herself reluctantly off him and pads gently towards the bathroom.

When she comes back her face is glowing and glistening from the sweat and the water she’s splashed on herself, her damp curls piled on top of her head in a messy ponytail. He loves how unabashed she is, standing entirely naked next to the bed as she swipes his water bottle from the nightstand and takes a long swig. It’s distracting, how tousled and brazen she looks, and he tells her as much as he stretches back on the mattress to watch her.

“You’re so sexy when you’re staying hydrated,” he says.

She laughs and tilts the water bottle towards him questioningly, tossing it towards his outstretched hand and rejoining him on the bed. She tracks the bob of his Adam’s apple as he drinks, waiting until he’s set the bottle back on the table before flopping unceremoniously into his side, slinging a leg up and over to tangle between his.

“Good morning,” she mumbles into his mouth as she kisses him, eyes already drifting shut as she snuggles into his neck, his arm warm and heavy where he’s slipped it back around her middle.

“Yeah,” he agrees, voice low and rough, and that’s it until the alarm goes off - they barely stir at all.


	6. vi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are folks. This fic is officially one of the longest, fluffiest, most dialogue-heavy things I've ever written in my life and I'm still not exactly sure how I went from not writing fic in basically five years to somehow accidentally churning this monster out, but here we are, 4+ months and a small novel later. Thanks to everyone that's stuck with me through my ridiculous stretches of not updating (remember when this was going to be a hiatus fic? ha) and for all your lovely comments along the way. Enjoy!

She meets the girls early at Sugar Face for belated birthday catch-ups before work and Nathaniel decides to escort her in and grab some coffee to go before he meets with his morning client; once he’s collected his takeaway cup he detours past their table to say hello and tell her he’s heading off, Rebecca immediately knotting her hand through his free one.

“Hey. Bet you half,” she says quietly, the hint of a smile on her lips as she swings their joined hands a few times before letting go with a squeeze.

He raises his eyebrows and laughs, bending to give her a quick kiss.

“Yeah,” he says. “Bet you half. Ladies,” he acknowledges with a small nod before departing.

“Who is that charming man and what has he done with Nathaniel?” Paula asks, pointing over her shoulder at his retreating back with a mix of suspicion and repulsion.

“You two are disgusting,” Valencia tells Rebecca in agreement, crossing her legs and taking a sip of her coffee. “But also kind of adorable, and I hate you.”

“Aww, thank you,” Rebecca coos in a nasally voice, puckering her mouth.

“They’re really not that adorable,” Heather says dryly. “Try sometimes sharing a house with them. They’re definitely mostly gross.”

Rebecca hasn’t gotten around to broaching the topic of them not having to sometimes share a house anymore with Heather, but she’s kind of still waiting for an appropriate time. She figures Heather will be chill about it—she is about mostly everything—but she still can’t help but feel a little guilty about the whole situation.

“What are you two betting on, anyway?” Paula asks.

Paula’s eyes are narrowed like her Spidey-sense for romantic developments in Rebecca’s life is tingling, like she’s divined something fundamental has changed and Rebecca supposes it has, but she isn’t ready to talk about that either, not just yet.

“Oh, you know. Just a dumb bet on who can go the longest without texting the other person. Blegh, stupid gross couple stuff, right? Whoever wins gets half of my birthday cheesecake to themselves.”

“Cheesecake?” Paula echoes suspiciously. “Nathaniel doesn’t eat cheesecake. He doesn’t eat cake, period.”

Rebecca blinks.

“Right, but if he wins, it’s half the cheesecake that I’m not allowed to eat, so. He still sees that as winning,” she covers with a shrug, apparently somewhat acceptably because Paula nods with a quiet _ohh_ and returns to her donut _._

“So what did he get you for your birthday? Something ridiculously expensive?” Valencia asks.

“Uh, yes. Yes,” Rebecca says, only faltering for a second. “Sadly not a puppy, so that was a minor let down. But there was some jewellery, and tickets to a show in LA, and a nice fancy dinner and either side of that we had tons of amazing sex, so.”

She clicks her tongue and makes an a-okay gesture with her fingers as Paula wrinkles her nose in distaste.

“Gross. I mean, good on you. But still—gross.”

“You guys have been together a year now, right? That is so wild,” Heather drawls. “Like, not to be a downer and bring up that one time you dated Josh for like, a grand total of three weeks before you decided to get married and your whole subsequent nervous breakdown or anything, but look at you, girl. Making mad strides.”

“Aww, thanks, Heather. You know, all that stuff with Josh just seems so long ago. But when I think about it, when Josh and I started properly dating is exactly the time Nathaniel and I first met. Weird, huh? And then two weeks before the wedding we got stuck in that elevator together and made out real quick, and now look at us.”

Rebecca scrunches up her face and laughs and before stuffing the rest of her donut in her mouth, glancing up to find all three of her friends staring at her, eyebrows raised.

“Wait, what?” Heather prods, dragging out the second word.

“Oh right—I never told you guys about that,” Rebecca realises around her mouthful, swallowing in a painful gulp. “Yeah. So it was a whole thing. Nathaniel and I sort of kissed while Josh and I were engaged? We got trapped in an elevator, he suggested we have sex, I said no, we spent the whole night sorting everyone in the office into Hogwarts houses, and then we kissed. Well, technically I kissed him—it was the whole Devil Winds thing, I couldn’t help it. Then I panicked and moved the wedding up to compensate. Guys, don’t look at me like that. I make _terrible_ decisions. We all know this. In the grand scheme of fucked up shit I’ve done, this was, like, barely a four.”

Her friends exchange weighted glances and she sighs.

“Look, I know I’ve done a whole bunch of horrible stuff. Not just to Josh, but all of you. And I’m aware I’ve had some issues with fidelity in the past. For instance, Valencia—I know I spent a lot of time actively trying to sabotage your relationship with Josh and that was definitely not okay. I kissed him after the water trial even though I knew the two of you were together and I didn’t even care, which was terrible of me. Heather—I didn’t hook up with Greg while the two of you were dating, but honestly? One night he came over after Josh and I had a disagreement and I… probably would have, if he hadn’t have left. Because that’s how desperate for love and affection I was. Paula—you were probably safe because Scott isn’t remotely my type but by that same token I’ve made way stranger choices of people to sleep with, so maybe we just got lucky in that respect. But I wasn’t always there for you when you needed me and I am so, so sorry. To all of you. For any time I’ve ever been a shitty friend. Which I know is a lot.”

“I mean, it’s fine,” Heather says awkwardly. “You were going through some stuff.”

“Yes,” Rebecca says, “I was, but that is no excuse. My personality disorder is not a free pass to treat people like garbage. You all deserve better. Sometimes I wonder why any of you are still friends with me at all.”

“You’re kind of a hard person to shake off—” Heather begins.

“Hey, none of that,” Paula interrupts, grabbing Rebecca’s hand and squeezing. “We’re all friends with you because you’re a kind, passionate, loyal and loving person that does amazing things for the people you care about. Granted, you don’t always bring your A-game, but you’ve definitely made some massive improvements this past year. So, blanket apology accepted. Right, gals?”

“Mm-hmm, sure. Totally,” Heather agrees. “Don’t even mention it.”

They all turn to look expectantly at Valencia, Rebecca’s eyes going wide in her best imitation of a small, pathetic dog. Heather nudges her under the table with her knee.

“I mean I guess,” Valencia says eventually, straightening her shoulders haughtily. “Since it’s your birthday and all. Or at least it was, and you’re doing the puppy eyes thing. The eyes have to count for something, right?”

Valencia startles and stiffens when Rebecca unexpectedly flings her her arms around her in a tight hug, eventually forcing herself to relax and accept the gesture by briefly leaning into it.

“You can let go now,” she says after a moment, but her suggestion falls on deaf ears as Rebecca continues to squeeze, brows knitting in appreciation.

“Don’t look at me,” Paula says with amusement at Valencia’s pleading look. “You threw her the bone—now you’re on your own.”

* * *

Rebecca spies Paula at the break room table, dutifully studying between mouthfuls of turkey sandwich and hovers by the edge of the partition, fidgeting with her hands an chewing on her lower lip. After a moment Paula must notice her in her periphery because she glances up, smiling, before setting her sandwich back on her plate.

“Hey, Cookie. What’s up?”

Relieved at the in she’s being offered, she slides into the chair opposite and rests her chin on her hands, leading forward conspiratorially.

“So, some stuff went down on my birthday that I wasn’t ready to talk about at the time, but I’d like to tell you now if that’s okay,” she says, almost breathlessly. “It wasn’t lying so much as careful omission, though, because I needed time and space to process for myself, so please don’t be mad I kept it from you.”

Paula raises her eyebrows and pushes her notebook aside. “Okay, well what is it?”

“So remember that conversation you and I had a few weeks ago, about Nathaniel acting kind of weird and planning something, and you thought he was going to propose?”

Paula’s brows shoot up, eyes opening as wide as her mouth as she ducks in closer in preparation for her exclamation only to have Rebecca cut her off with a hand on her shoulder, glancing self-consciously around to ensure their officemates aren’t paying attention.

“No. No, before you freak out. Calm down. No. He didn’t propose. But—that did come up, kinda, because there was this whole thing with a box, and I might’ve jumped the gun a little, as I do, which lead to a whole other conversation,” she explains, waving her hand around. “Anyway, long story short: Nathaniel and I are… going to be moving in together. We’ve started looking for a place.”

“ _What?_ Wow. That’s almost just as big. Look at you two go. What did Heather say?”

“She doesn’t know yet. I’m going to talk to her tonight. But Paula, that’s not the only development. If you remember the other half of our conversation—the bit about why I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be proposing any time soon—that information is… no longer up to date.”

Paula stares at her a moment in confusion before understanding dawns on her face.

“Oh. _Oh._ Ohhh,” she intones, moving quickly from realisation to acknowledgement to a romantic sigh. “Oh, honey. Good for you. I knew something was up between you two the minute I saw you. How did this all come about? I want details.”

“You probably don’t,” Rebecca contradicts with a wince. “There was a lot of sex involved. Yeah. Lot of crying, on my behalf. Lot of intercourse. Lot of emotional intercourse—you get the idea. Turns out I was kinda sleeping on some stuff. Nothing too surprising but also real deep-seated, tied into my abandonment issues; should definitely follow up with my therapist. But the point is, we are moving forward with this. And I feel good about it, and I wanted you to know. Because you’re my best friend, and I want you to know these things.”

She reaches over to give her hand a tight squeeze and Paula returns the gesture, cupping her free hand over their joined ones.

“Not to be a downer, at all, but I just have to ask—you’ve thought about this? Like, really thought about what it all means for you? Moving in with someone, that’s huge.”

“Paula, this was the opposite of impulsive. There was literally an entire year of build up. I mean, I still managed to make it come off as kind of impulsive, by waking him up in the middle of the night to tell him, but that was only because I’d been lying there considering it for like, five hours. No one can tell me I haven’t thought this through.” 

Paula nods in acknowledgement. “Well okay.”

“Do I still have doubts? Yes—tiny ones. In the back of my head. But for once that’s a good thing. Because those are normal, right? Love is scary. But that means it’s real, and not some blind infatuation.” She shrugs. “I know it’s not going to be perfect. It’s messy, and it’s complicated, but we’re working it all through. Together. I… know who I am with him. No,” she corrects, shaking her head. “That’s not right either—I know who I am _regardless_ of him. When I’m with Nathaniel, I don’t forget who I am. I’m not pretending anymore. I’m just… me. More me than I’ve been in a very long time.”

“Well hey,” Paula says, beaming. “I like this new-old you. Whoever she is, and for as long as it takes her to keep figuring it out.”

* * *

She’s balanced somewhat precariously on a breakfast stool when she hears Nathaniel come in, knees up on the seat and absently rocking herself from side to side as she half-sprawls across the countertop to reach her computer, tongue caught between her teeth in concentration.

“Hey,” he says slowly, dropping his keys on the benchtop beside her.

“Oh, hey. How was your run?”

“It was fine. You… are not wearing pants,” he observes, rolling his wrist to point at the limbs in question.

“It’s Sunday,” she says dismissively without looking up from the screen.

He clears his throat and gestures backward over his shoulder just in time to indicate the sound of the door opening again.

“So, my parents are here.”

Rebecca blinks at him and suddenly their brunch plans come back to her in a horrifying rush; she slams the laptop shut just as the pair in question step into the kitchen, feeling the heat of embarrassment flood her cheeks.

“Rebecca, it’s lovely to see you again,” Nathaniel’s mother offers, to her credit only looking slightly taken aback.

“Hiiiii,” she says in a high pitched voice, sidestepping behind the island counter in an attempt to hide her bare legs and clapping her hands together in front of her face. “I… am so sorry, I completely forgot you guys were coming. I’ve been working on this case, and time got away from me.”

Nathaniel runs his tongue over his bottom lip and flicks his eyes heavenward as he holds out a pair of her shorts he manages to snatch from the laundry pile on the back of the couch. Rebecca accepts them gratefully, making a mostly futile attempt to step into them as gracefully and as subtly as possible.

“Sorry,” she mouths at him, cringing. 

He clears his throat. “Could you excuse us for one second? Make yourselves at home.”

“Oh my god, why didn’t you remind me before you left this morning?” she accuses once they’ve retreated into the bedroom, tossing her t-shirt over her head as soon as he shuts the door behind them. 

It narrowly avoids hitting him in the face.

“Having them over to see the new place was _your_ idea.”

“And I’m kind of angry at past tense me for having it right now, because that was completely mortifying.”

She thumbs frantically through their closet, too panicked to pick anything until Nathaniel reaches around her to draw out a hanger with a blue floral dress; she accepts it and throws it on hurriedly, twisting her back towards him so he can pull up the zipper.

She tugs the elastic out from her messy bun and brushes her fingers through the tangles.

“Well, there’s not much I can do about my hair. But at least I’m not flashing my butt anymore.”

“Sometimes I just have to take what I can get,” he responds wryly.

“I mean on the upside, I don’t think it’s possible for your dad to have a much lower opinion of me than he already does.” She steps forward into his personal space as she’s clipping in the earrings he passes her. “Hey, do you think you guys will have a fight about what an unabashed harlot your girlfriend is?”

“Already gearing up for it,” he says, closing the distance to give her a quick kiss before opening the door.

* * *

“So your dad was almost pleasant today. Maybe that early morning flash of my lady limbs shocked him into submission.”

“Yeah, I kind of have the suspicion he was behaving under threat of my mother, which doesn’t happen often but tends to be incredibly effective when it does.”

She grins as she reaches over to place her tiles on the board, triumphant when Nathaniel inspects her move with an irritated hum and begrudgingly jots down her score.

“Don’t get too cocky,” he warns. “We’re only a few moves in. The game has only just begun. And besides—it’s not about winning, it’s about having fun.”

“You’re only saying that because I already beat you at Bananagrams. Twice.”

He blows a derisive raspberry at her as he shuffles his letters around, and she can tell she’s succeeded in stirring him up by the way his eyes narrow at his tile holder with renewed determination. The doorbell chimes, surprising them both, and she uses the armchair behind her to hoist herself to her feet, leaving Nathaniel to contemplate his next move as she pads over to the door. 

“Paula,” she says, pleasantly nonplussed to find her friend waiting on the other side.

“So I was cleaning up the spare room and thought I’d swing by and drop these off before I forgot again,” Paula says, gesturing to the DVDs in her hand.

“Oh hey, come on in. We were just playing Scrabble.” At Paula’s scrunched up face she hastily explains, “Oh, no—that’s not a euphemism. We were actually playing Scrabble. Yeah. Nathaniel was getting all gloaty, but I totally have it in the bag since I played ‘chutzpah’ on two triple word scores.”

She swings the door open wider and Paula follows her inside, albeit a little cautiously.

“Paula,” Nathaniel greets with a nod from the floor in front of the couch, the discarded lid from the Scrabble box at his side confirming Rebecca’s assurance until he chooses to add, “You should grateful she’s wearing pants.”

“What? No,” Rebecca scoffs, rolling her eyes at the _aha!_ look Paula shoots her. “He’s just—whatever, ignore him. You’re so funny,” she tosses sarcastically in his direction with a withering glare.

Paula sets the DVDs down on the kitchen counter and surveys the apartment. “So. How are we settling into the new digs?”

“Amazingly, thank you,” Rebecca says, giving a small curtsy, before skipping into the kitchen to examine the cases. “Ooh, my box set of _The Wire._ You didn’t have to make a special trip to bring these back, though—you know that right? Mi DVDs are su DVDs.”

Paula waves her off. “I’ve had them for too long. They’re yours. A woman’s gotta have a code, right? Plus, I just really needed an excuse to get out of the house for awhile—Tommy’s learning how to play the recorder for a school assembly and I do not know how much more these ears can take.”

“Guess what we’re watching tonight,” Rebecca sing-songs in Nathaniel’s direction once she recovers from her answering grimace, sashaying through the kitchen with the first season clutched to her chest. “He’s a _Wire_ virgin,” she stage whispers to Paula.

“Oh, I’m so jealous,” Paula pouts, shoulders sagging. “He gets to watch it for the first time?”

“And I get to watch him watch it for the first time which is, like, almost as good.”

“Yeah, I kind of hate it when you do that,” Nathaniel says. “Watching me watch things—it’s unnerving.”

“But you pull such good faces,” Rebecca offers in her defence, meeting his eyes and biting her lip at the way he smirks and tilts his chin up at her.

“So I should get going,” Paula announces, glancing amusedly between the two of them. “I’ve got to go to the store on my way home. Scott said he’d cook dinner, so I have to stock up on frozen meals, just in case.”

Rebecca sticks out her lower lip in protest. “But you just got here. Hey, wanna stay and play Scrabble with us?”

“I super don’t,” Paula says with a tight smile, pointing back at her with both index fingers, “and I think you know why. So thank you, for forever ruining that game for me. Luckily my family have no interest in board games that don’t involve dice, or buttons, or sound effects, or yelling.”

“Oh, when we play there’s usually yelling,” Rebecca supplies helpfully, gesturing over her shoulder at Nathaniel. “He’s kind of a sore loser. But yeah, I see your point. Sorry.” She pauses to look him up and down. “The association works for me, though.”

“I’m gonna go.”

“And that’s fair.”

Paula’s fears turn out not to be entirely unfounded and almost taken like a suggestion; arguing over word validity turns into play fighting and they end up having laughing, lazy Sunday sex on the rug and an elaborate arrangement of couch cushions and afterwards Rebecca sifts idly through the scattered tiles and spells out H-I on the flat plane of Nathaniel’s stomach. He follows her lead, crafting an arrangement across her clavicle and when he’s done she has to strain her neck to see it, the vibration of her subsequent laughter sending the tiles sliding away and disrupting his careful assemblage of the word B-O-O-B-S across her chest.

“Double word score,” he says with a twitch of his lips.

“Perv. What are you, twelve?”

He smiles when she rolls over and spells out I L-O-V-E Y-O-U on the floor in front of them in response and huffs out a laugh when she quickly tacks on an R B-U-T-T to the end of it. 

“Likewise,” he says, pinching the anatomy in question fondly.

“Hey,” she begins. “Isn’t it, like, so great, having our own place, where we can just be naked whenever we want?”

She wrinkles her nose at him as she speaks and he laughs.

“You were the one with a roommate, not me,” he says.

“Your apartment doesn’t count. It was basically just a giant bedroom, so it wasn’t as fun.”

“Being naked at my apartment wasn’t fun?”

“Well, maybe a little,” she concedes.

Edging closer to carefully trace his fingertips up over the telltale redness blossoming on the skin of her knees he frowns, cupping his hands over them gently.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she insists, pulling his hand away to entwine it with her own. “This is barely a graze. It’ll be gone by tomorrow. The one night stand of rug burns.”

His eyes are on the ceiling as he gives her a palm a squeeze, swallowing back a yawn. “Hmm. Romantic.”

There’s an inherent glee involved with having him here with her like this, spread out haphazard on the carpet, charcoal throw draped over their waists as an afterthought, his undivided attention undeniably focused on her; though he’s never been particularly withholding the no-nonsense lawyer in him tends to instinctively steer away from aimless afternoons like the one they’re currently spending on the living room floor of their new apartment, shifting seamlessly between wordplay and foreplay and back again, lazy even in their want for each other, arousal levels set to a languid slow burn. Rebecca’s giddy with the sheer domesticity of it, unable to tamp down on the thrill of how spine-tinglingly _normal_ it all feels.

Warmly mapping the familiar landscape of his profile with her eyes she slides her gaze up over the bob of his throat curving up towards his tilted chin, the proud jut of his nose, the prominent overhang of his brow giving rise to the unmistakable crest of his voluminous hair. She wants to memorise him, memorise the moment, lock it up inside her and live in it forever. 

She wishes she could stop time and soak every second of it all in at once.

“Hey. Bet you half this enormous apartment I’ll love you ’til the end of the lease,” she murmurs.

“I knew there was a reason I pushed for a long term option.”

“Well, a couple of plucky real estate lawyers like ourselves—we could probably get out of it if we had to.”

“A contract’s a contract,” Nathaniel refutes, propping the pillows up under his head and beckoning her over. “Legally, I’m pretty sure you’re stuck with me for another year.”

Shoving the errant Scrabble tiles out from between them to clear the way she shuffles closer, wriggling until she’s resting in the crook of his arm right up against his chest, his hand curling down to play with her hair on autopilot. 

“Thank you,” she says quietly once she’s settled.

“For what?”

She cranes her neck to butt her nose affectionately against his. “For sticking with me.”

“You know you’re really not as troublesome as you like to think you are,” he jokes, quick to trade her eskimo kiss for a real one. “You’re barely a thorn in my side. You’re going to have to try a little harder if you want to be a real nuisance. Aim for the kidneys, maybe.”

“Nathaniel,” she says, stern enough to urge him to take her seriously.

“I know,” he says. Squeezing her tighter against him, he drops a lingering kiss on her hair. “Likewise. I know I’m… not exactly the easiest person to get to know.”

She nuzzles into his neck, sighing, arm looping around him tightly.

“I love you,” she says.

“Love you too. Irrespective of the lease.”

She laughs. “Yeah. Irrespective of the lease.”

After a quiet minute he stretches, the hard surface of the floor starting to take its toll on his back. He makes no immediate move to get up, though—his palm rubbing up and down her arm as he studies the smattering of freckles on her cheekbone, stubbornly glancing away when she turns her head and catches him.

“So,” he begins, clearing his throat. “What’s next on your agenda for today?”

Rebecca considers for a moment—looks around at the life she’s built in West Covina and thinks about how finally, _finally,_ something’s started to stick.

“Be happy,” she says simply, burrowing back into the blanket and his side with a contented sigh.

(She wants to. She’s always wanted to.)

(She will.)


End file.
